Halo: Mass Contact
by TheConstellation
Summary: Thirty-five years have past since the end of the Human-Covenant War. Having reclaimed most all its previous glory, the UNSC exploration locates a massive artificial construct in the outer orbit of a star. While investigating the object alongside their Sangheili allies, new aliens come forth from the construct and bring humanity and the sangheili into a fate they never expected. R
1. Chapter 1: Poke it with a Stick

"So what does this enormous hunk of metal do, lieutenant?"

"We'll know sooner if you stop bothering me captain," the lieutenant in question replied, shooting a disgruntled look over her shoulder at her ship's commander before looking back to her sensor board.

"I know but getting a rise out of you is entertaining, lieutenant" Commander Jonathan Host replied jovial as he leaned back on his command chair with an easy smile, observing the massive tuning fork shaped object that sat out beyond the view screen of his _Listener_ class sensor corvette, _Persistent Beat_.

"Very well then sir, I'll tell you what we do know. For starters, it is most definitely not Forerunner, they built anything so organic looking and spectroscopic analysis isn't matching it to any known Forerunner materials," his sensor officer reported, her voice crisp and a touch annoyed before she continued at a nod from Jonathan. "Second our AI's are having difficulty interfacing with the construct's systems but they are making progress, we should know everythi-"

Anything else she had been about to say was cut off as a tremendous blue glow began within the pair of concentric rings at the bottom of tuning fork shape while alarms began to blare about them. "Warning! Massive energy spikes detected from the object!" The sensors officer reported.

As Jonathan watched, the rings at the back of the fork began to spin and the glow intensified, meanwhile, the cordon of UNSC and Sangheili that sat some 75,000 kilometers distant began to come about to face the now suddenly object as they brought weapons online.

Commander Jonathan and the rest of his bridge crew collectively held their breath as motes of blue light suddenly dropped into place beside the construct, resolving themselves into ships as the glow disappeared.

But they weren't human or covenant ships.

True their sharp angles resembled human ships, but the seven ships that had just come through what was rapidly becoming apparent as a transport device all boasted back and downwards sweeping wings at the back.

"Comms, open a line to FLEETCOM and hail the ships that just appeared!" Jonathan roared, his adrenaline kicking into high gear after the moment's pause where everything had seemed to slow down.

As he listened to his comm officer rapid fire type commands to the computer, Jonathan watched as the seven ships turned as one towards the _Persistent Beat_, the six 200 meter long ships forming about around a larger 500 meter long version of themselves.

For a moment, Jonathan wondered if it was in response to his vessel's hailing communications before a series of flashes at the bows of the ships brought him back to reality. Before he could even consider ordering evasive maneuvers, the ships only a few thousands kilometers away had fired and their rounds impacted the Persistent Beat.

The ship hasn't had its shields up to get proper sensor readings on the tuning fork shaped array.

The rounds from the alien ship slammed into hull and sent the ship lurching out of position before a late arriving round from the larger ship pierced through the reactors at which point the Persistent Beat disappeared in ball of nuclear fire.

Commander Jonathan and had the briefest of moments before his death to wonder why they had to be fighting again as the _Persistent Beat_'s existence came to an abrupt halt.

**_OoOoOoOoO_**

**AN: Alright, so real short chapter here at the start and I promise that the chapters will get much longer from here on out, it's just I wanted to leave this with a fun little cliff hangar for the moment and see who liked it or not. **

**Now onto the serious business. First off, I'm going to be doing my absolute best to stick to the canon of both series, minus the systems alliance from the ME series since they obviously aren't present in this story. Now the point of this is that I will not tolerate a single argumentative comment about weapons and curb-stomping or what-not, so don't post any of that shit here. If you absolutely need to let me know about some fact that you feel needs correction, PM it to me, don't whine in the review section about how one side is overpowered because I'm not going to give a damn if this turns into a curb-stomp.**

**So with that out of the way, I'll now issue a general invitation for anyone with ideas for the story in terms of plot, characters, ships, weapons, or anything else I have forgotten to write here.**


	2. Chapter 2: On Your Orders

Captain Ammen Dorrell Stood at the command console of the Turian light cruiser_ Pride of the Ancestors_ as he read over the morning's duty logs for his defense group's readiness, which according to the commander's of the six frigates and one tender ship serving under him, stood at a very acceptable ninety-three percent. Taking a sip from his caffeinated goren, a coffee like drink made for turians, he shifted over the holo display before his command console to view the local space around the 314th relay and gave a sigh.

Absolutely nothing for parsecs.

Again he sighed. Guarding the un-activated three hundred and fourteenth really was nothing more than a formality. After all no sane species in Citadel space had any interest in activating a dormant relay and potentially encountering the next Rachni or Krogan.

Dorrell's sigh had another source though. Guarding a dormant relay was tantamount of the end of your career unless a friend in the military could pull the strings to get you shifted away from that duty, and so far every string Captain Ammen Dorrell had pulled on had broken under the pressure and left him here to guard the cold lump of metal ahead of his ships. And for the moment it seemed, that things were going to be boring yet again for the two hundred and seventy-fifth day of his deployment.

And then everything went straight to hell.

"Captain!" Ammen's sensor officer yelled, fear and excitement coloring the normal stoicism of the Turian's voice, "The relay is showing activity, someone is turning it on at the other side!"

Ammen nearly dropped his cup of goren in shock at his sensor officer's declaration and the bridge had become very quiet all of a sudden before everything burst into life as he switched the display before him to show the same as his sensor officer's screen.

"Tell me what we know so far, Tlenar," Dorrell ordered calmly as he looked at the data flowing across his screen.

"Not much yet sir," Lieutenant Tlenar replied cautiously, "All we can say for sure is someone just turned on the relay at the other end and we won't know more unless we go through."

For several moments, Captain Dorrell considered his options before giving his next options, especially given he was about to make first contact with a new species, "Comms, get me a line to the high command, I need some orders here. We never expected this thing to get turned on from the other end."

The comm officer, a loyal, competent officer by the name of Nidzer Trilel, nodded and promptly pulled up a communications line to the Turian high command back on their home world of Palaven.  
Before him, the holographic view of the local space suddenly shifted to change into the upper body and head of a high ranking turian that Ammen quickly recognized and saluted as the holograph began speaking.

"Captain Ammen Dorrell, for what reason are you bothering, the turian high command?" the turian at the other end of the line said, his voice gravelly and hard, making Dorrell flinch in reaction, clearly he was high on someone's shit list, for spirits' knew what.

"Sir," Dorrell said, "The 314 relay has become active, someone on the far side is activating it and as this falls outside my orders to prevent Citadel species from activating this end of the relay, I wished to request further orders."

There it was, Dorrell had put his issue out in the open, he was passing the buck to someone higher in command to get the possible first contact out of his lap.

And for several moments there was no response, long enough Dorrell worried the line had been disrupted when the general at the other end of the line spoke up again, his voice grave, and filled with and unspoken warning to never try and pass the buck again.

"Captain Dorrell, Your orders are to prevent the activation of the relay in accordance with council law, and to punish those who attempt to with death. So your orders are to proceed through the relay and destroy whomever is attempting to activate the relay. We will have a fleet along behind your shortly to ensure they are subdued." the high commander said.

Immediately, Dorrell snapped off a smart salute as the transmission ended before before turning to his comm's officer and giving a new barrage of orders. "All ships, prep for relay transit and make weapons ready for immediate discharge after we arrive. We have order from high command to subdue whomever is attempting to activate the relay!" he shouted, putting all of his enthusiasm behind the command before feeling the ship shift under him as his seven combat ships pulled away from their tender which would remain behind at the relay to greet whatever turian fleet came behind them.

"Ten seconds to jump," came over the com.

"5... 4... 3... 2... 1... Mark."

At that word, the seven Turian ships were suddenly grabbed by arcs of blue energy from the Mass Relay and hurled through space.

…

Only to arrive an instant later at the other side of the relay beside another active Mass Relay.

"Captain, single contact to port, sixty-seven degrees from our bearing, elevation seventeen degrees, distance forty-seven hundred kilometers!" Dorrell's sensor officer shouted as the ships came to a halt.

"Come about and engage, continue our scan of the system," Captain Dorrell ordered.

"Sir, the ship is hailing us," Nidzer spoke up from communications.

"Ignore them, once all ships have a direct line for their main guns, open fire." Dorrell replied.

There were several moments of quiet as Dorrell waited patiently for his seven ships to come to bear on the single, two hundred and fifty meter ship to their left. When they finally did though, he felt the cruiser beneath him shudder as its main guns fired at the frigate sized target.

It was with satisfaction that he watched as the ship took first one impact then another and another before a shot from the _Pride of the Ancestors_ apparently holed its reactors and the ship disappeared in a fireball. He was slightly worried though that it had taken so many rounds to destroy a ship that hadn't shown signs of shields.

He was about to give additional orders when his Tlenar shouted out in surprise at what had just appeared on his screen.

"Additional contacts, sir! Eleven cruiser and dreadnought sized ships at seventy-five thousand kilometers!" he yelled.

Captain Dorrell felt his blood run cold with forming ice as he looked over the new ships registering on the sensors before the screen suddenly showed what was registering as weapons fire.

_**OoOoOoOoO**_

**AN: So... yeah, I'm on a roll with writing, so I have another chapter done, this one also ending with what I hope was a decent cliffhanger. Besides that, if you have suggestions, give them, if you want to whine, PM them to me don't fill space on the review pages.**

**Regardless, I hope you're all enjoying this story.**


	3. Chapter 3: Awaken a Sleeping Giant

**First off, we're gonna deal with some complaints lodged against me or more precisely, my story.**

**Valerianus: Captain Ammen Dorrell reported the situation up al lthe way to turian high command at Palaven and it's quite possible the turians there have a more... liberal... interpretation of the dormant Mass Relay activation law as the activation in progress was affecting a relay in citadel space, thus they might have felt they could justify it.**

**Now big thanks everyone to SpartanDog1 for not actually reading the story before posting his comments! If he did read, he'd noticed every ship in question was within the proper size range, it took the combined effort of seven ships just to destroy the _corvette Persistent Beat, _so by no means am I down playing how strong Titanium-A should be.**

**Oh, also thank him for not reading my request to not put that whining, er complaining, er criticism stuff in the comments and rather PM it to me so I can discuss it.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

Again.

It was all happening again.

That was the only thought running through the mind of the commander of the UNSC Halcyon cruiser refit Mk-II, _Titan of Time_. Gripping the railings around the command chair hard enough he might leave marks, Rear Admiral (lower half) Richard Shearton watched the cooling fire ball that had been the Persistent Beat with an angry snarl on his face.

A man who had only just enlisted before the start of the Human-Covenant War, Richard Shearton knew how it had started, how humanity had tried to be peaceful, and how it had failed as the Covenant waged their genocidal campaign to exterminate humanity.

He had been there fighting from the first day, and now here he was, thirty-five years after the end, watching as yet another alien species decided to wage war against humanity.

Only this time they had allies.

Besides his _Halcyon_ cruiser the_ Titan of Time_, there were two _Marathon _class Cruisers present along with four _Constantinople_ class heavy destroyers.

Sharing their space though, completing their ring above and around the construct and now the clearly enemy ships were four CCS class battle cruisers.

"Sensors, what are the enemies' movements?" Shearton ground out with all the warmness of hard vacuum.

"The six corvette analogues have formed up around the destroyer analogue and are accelerating directly at us in a loose cone formation," his sensor officer replied.

Richard nodded before speaking into the air. "Nimitz, get a line to all ships, tell them to fire at will however they are to not hit the construct. Those aliens came through it, and we need to know where they came from," he said.

"Understood, sir," a voice replied from the speakers before resolving as a man in a twentieth century naval uniform took shape in the bridge's holotank.

On the tactical display, Shearton watched as ships all about the loose ring formation suddenly fired their weapons, Sangheili vessels included.

With interest, he watched as MAC rounds and plasma torpedoes show across the intervening seventy-five thousand kilometers in a matter of moments to tear into the approaching ships.

The MAC rounds met brief resistance in the form of orange colored shields that flared into existence for instants before disappearing to simply leave the massive rounds to tear through their hulls like tissue paper.

The covenant energy weapons however, were another matter. When the first torpedo impacted, no shield flared to resist it as the torpedo melted through the hull before fire suddenly exploded through every vent and crevice of the vessel as the atmosphere inside ignited in the intense heat.

When the weapons fire had cleared, Richard Shearton was surprised to find that there was even a ship left, but yet one was left, yet horribly badly damaged as it came about and fled towards the tuning fork abject before blue energy suddenly shot it across the stars.

**OoOoO**

"Nimitz, get me a line to HIGHCOM at Reach I have a feeling a lot of people are going to be upset to know we're at war again," Richard said tiredly as he sat in his command chair.

Already he had reports from the other ship captains coming in to him for approval before they were sent on to HIGHCOM and he knew doubtlessly that the Sangheili fleet master was reporting to his superiors at that very moment. So as calmly as he could, Richard waited till Nimitz piped up saying, "Reach HIGHCOM on the horn sir."

"Thanks Nimitz," Richard grumbled briefly before looking to the display before him as his superior appeared in holographic form.

Admiral of the Navy, Lord Knight Terrance Hood.

"Rear Admiral Shearton," Hood began, his voice calm and strong, "What's happened at the artifact that you need my attention?"

A fellow survivor of the war, and living legend almost as great as that of the Master Chief, Admiral Hood was always down to business.

"Sir," Richard began, his regret evident in his voice, "During our examination of the construct, it suddenly became active at which point seven ships arrived via FTL appearing to be 'caught' by the construct. At that point, the sensor corvette Persistent Beat attempted to hail them and they opened fire, destroying the Persistent Beat in several shots. I ordered all ships to return fire immediately, the Sangheili accompanied us in this and all but one ship was destroyed. The ship in question was heavily damaged and used the construct to perform an apparent FTL jump away from us. I've ordered all ships to constant readiness in case they return, but I believe I'll need more help here sir especially given we just had another bad first contact."

Hood was quiet for several moments as he cupped his chin with a hand before he spoke again. "Very well, we'll send everything we can to you, Richard, unfortunately that may mean you'll be usurped from command of the situation when reinforcements arrive. The good news is that from you said they have to use that construct to go FTL so that's the only way they'll enter the system unless they have something like slip space drives hidden up their sleeves which I wouldn't put past them."

"Thank you sir," Richard responded, relieved Hood was taking the situation as seriously as was required. He wasn't quite happy about having a new commanding officer in charge, but if they were sending someone over his rank, that also meant they would be sending something of at least an_ Infinity_ class if not larger as the higher up the chain you went, the more risks you were allowed to take and thus the more valuable the ship you were allowed to command as a sign of such risks and the power you were able to bring to bear on a situation.

Cautiously, Richard Shearton, looked out the front view port of the Titan of Time as if there was a ship waiting there to attack the moment he did so. As he considered the fact that things were going relatively smoothly for the moment, after the destruction of the Persistent Beat and most of the attacking aliens, Richard allowed himself a small sigh before he downed the entirety of his coffee.

This was going to be a long, long fight. He could feel it.

He could feel it just like he had at the start of the Human-Covenant War.

**OoOoO**

Captain Ammen Dorrell thanked the spirits that his ship had managed to make it back to the Mass Relay and jump away from the fight before it had been destroyed. The_ Pride of the Ancestors_ now sat docked alongside his flotilla's tender ship undergoing emergency repairs to replace the starboard wing that had been sheared off by one of the mass driver rounds the alien ships had used and to seal the radiation breaches coming from the reactor that had nearly killed him and his entire crew.

Only prompt medical supply and treatment from the fleet tender had saved them from that fate. Worse yet, the fight had disabled his ship's long range communication systems and he couldn't yet get a message off to Palaven to tell them to send everything they possibly could as sending their fleets piecemeal through the relay was nothing less than suicide.

After hurling another series over orders over the ship board comm lines to get the communications systems restored immediately, Ammen Dorrell sat back in his command chair and downed another cup of goren.

Drinking five cups in two hours wasn't healthy for him, but neither was that fight and sitting here helpless was doing nothing for his nerves.

Still what frightened him most about the aliens was the bolts of red energy that had chased down his ships and simply passed through their kinetic barriers. They were some sort of energy weapon for sure, but their capabilities were terrifying.

**OoOoOoOoO**  
**AN: So two chapters up, and over 750 views in less than six hours, I never expected this to be so popular, it actually makes me kinda giddy. **  
**Now that I'm done being happy, about chapter length, they are getting longer, and I assure you they will only continue to do so as I get more established at writing this. The reason they were so short is I've never been the best at leaping into anything, but now that I'm here, I'll be writing nice long chapters that will hopefully keep people satisfied.**

**Again I extend my usual offer to all of you submit ideas to me for the story and again I'll ask that some of you few hundred readers please do review this so I know what to improve upon, submit long plaintive ones via PM so I may discuss them.**


	4. Info Dump, As Requested

So there was a request to know more about what sort of upgrades the UNSC has undergone in 35 years, so I decided to do this by revealing a new class of ship you'll be seeing in an up coming chapter. I had written up this ship for another story a fellow author is writing, but since they haven't used it, I'm going to make use of it as proprietary writings. So here we go.

By the way, the next chapter is already in the works, so don't worry about that., this is just addressing a request that was made.

OoOoOoOoO

_**Audacity class Battle Dreadnought:**_

**Ships-of-the-line:** Audacity (lead ship), Temerity, Bold, Daring, Brash, Effrontery, Shameless, and Brazen.  
**Class:** Battle Dreadnought  
**Length:** 14,782 meters (Keel Length: 14, 578 meters)  
**Height:** 4,965 meters  
**Width:** 2,343 meters  
**Armor:**  
**Base:** 12 meters Neo-Titanium alloy  
**Additional:** Variable position Neo-Titanium alloy armor plates  
**Weapons:**  
**Main: **  
4 Super Electromagnetic Cannons, 15,000 tonne shell at 0.7e  
48 Heavy plasma turrets featuring the 'Cortana' guidance algorithms  
4 PLAR systems

**Secondary:**

3,600 Pulse plasma turrets  
1,800 Twin barreled light rail guns  
5,200 Archer missile pods  
3,600 Brigadier missile pods

**Point Systems:**  
5,200 50 mm Computer linked Autocannons  
2,400 Phalanx point missile pods  
120 Scramble plasma defense missile pods  
Reserve/Special Weapons:  
Point SSRG

**Power System:**

**Main:**

2 Forerunner derived 'Crux' core design reactors

**Backup:**

1 Triple Ring Overlap Field design reactor

**Defenses:**

18 Multi-Zone Redundant Shield generators  
12 Backup Shield Generators  
Electronic Systems:  
4 Eighth-Generation AI's  
Argus Mass Sensor Collection System  
Long-Range Optical Telescope System  
Radar  
Lidar  
Infrared Sensors  
Gravitation Sensors  
Radiation Sensors  
Slip Space Sensors

_**Advancements: **_

**PLAR: **Short for** P**article** L**ance **A**cceleration **R**ing, the PLAR is essentially a three kilometer diameter particle accelerator similar in design to the Large Hadron Collider. Accelerating enormousness amounts of protons and neutrons to to nearly light-speed, the turret fires by siphoning the protons and neutrons out of the stream inside the acceleration ring and firing them out in a laser thin lance that hits with force on par with a large MAC round and travels at near light speed. Unfortunately, the size of a PLAR's acceleration ring means that only the largest of ships are capable of using them.

_**Point SSRG:**_

**Point SSRG: **The point SSRG takes the destruction of the Long Night of Solace and the Slip Space Comm Probe Launches to their logical, weaponized conclusion. Built into the bowels of whatever ship houses it and heavily armored, the SSRG uses precise coordinates to generate slipspace ruptures at distances of up to 500,000 kilometers. These ruptures are completely wild and doing nothing less than turn whatever is within range of the rupture into atomized pieces, spread across the multi-dimensions of slip space.

_**Neo-Titanium:**_

**Neo-Titanium: **Neo-Titanium is the UNSC's first significant step in mass production of Forerunner alloys. Only the limited production and creation and said alloys have necessitated that they have to be mixed with standard Titanium-A into a weaker alloy that is still significantly stronger than standard UNSC ship battle plate.


	5. Chapter 4: Blood in the Water

**Author Response First:**

**J.E.P 1996: The term battle dreadnought denotes a ship larger and bigger than a dreadnought. The ship order system goes a bit like this: light cruiser fast cruiser cruiser heavy cruiser fast battleship battleship dreadnought battle dreadnought. Each size up is larger and more heavily armed than the previous one, the battle term before dreadnought means its a bigger, meaner version of a dreadnought.**

**SpartanDog1: your comment would carry more weight if this wasn't taking place more than thirty years after the war. Plus while not unknown, there were elites who specialized in things besides combat.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

Admiral of the Fleet Lord Knight Terrance Hood looked up the polished, heavily stained oak table to where the hologram of the UEG president sat at the head of the table, his chin resting on steepled hands and his mouth drawn out into a thin scowl.

"Hood, what steps are we taking?" The president ground out.

At once, the heads of everyone present turned towards him, the Chief Director of ONI, Vice Admiral (upper half) Demeter Kiev, the General of the Army, Arnold Shaw, and the face of Vice Admiral (lower half) Kongo Chitose, as President Andrew R. Strauss was already looking at him.

"Sir," Hood began, "I've given mobilization orders to Vice Admiral Chitose and the entirety of the seventh fleet to more out from Harvest to the Shanxi system to join Rear Admiral Shearton and take take command of the situation and defend against any further intrusions by the aliens. Aside from her fleet's standard disposition, we've attached a number of science and tender ships to ensure that they'll be fine on their own for a time and that they'll be able to figure out what that construct is. Once they do, we've attached half a dozen prowlers and stealth cruiser Beyond Oblivion to her fleet to make jumps through the FTL system and find out what is on the other side and just where it is so we can begin our next moves."

"I see, does anyone else have any suggestions?" The president replied.

"Just one," Demeter said as he spoke up, "I would like to request that in case of further encounters, we have the Thermopylae attached as an independent unit to Admiral Chitose's fleet. It would be likely that the Spartan-IV's would prove quite capable of subduing one of the smaller ships if the opportunity arose." Demeter said, his voice accented slightly by his native Russian.

"I would agree to this, Anyone else have anything to say?" Strauss asked.

A series of shaking heads answered him before he continued speaking, "Very well then, Vice Admiral Chitose, get your fleet under way and reinforce Admiral Shearton's position and then move on from there. Understood?"

"Yes sir," Vice Admiral Chitose replied, a touch of her oriental origin showing in her accent as she snapped off a quick salute and faded from view as her hologram cut from the conversation.

OoOoO

Captain Dorrell stood stiffly at attention on the bridge of the dreadnought Palaven as he waited for his superior before him to turn their attention towards him. Though he knew the waiting tactic was a play to make him nervous, he couldn't deny it was working as his mandibles worked in nervousness from the wait. He had seen the uniform on the turian before him and realized this was the legendary admiral Ardes Trell.

His thoughts were suddenly swept away as the admiral in question turned about to face him, giving him an appraising look.

"So Captain Ammen, you took your flotilla through the relay on orders from high command. You engaged and destroyed a single ship you found there as ordered, before additional ships further out from the relay destroyed your entire group barring your ship which was heavily damaged. Is this correct?" Admiral Trell asked.

Dorrell felt his mandibles flatten against his face in fear before he said, "Yes sir, that is correct. I would like to note that of the ships further out from the relay, seven of them were dreadnoughts and four others were cruisers."

"Yes I noticed that and that would be why I'm here with twenty-two of our militaries dreadnoughts, nearly two thirds of our military's fire power, Ammen, so your warning about their dreadnoughts and their weapons did not go unneeded."

"Thank you sir," Dorrell managed to get out.

"Now, the Pride of the Ancestors should be ready for action in twelve hours, at that point I want you to do a full systems check, and provided your ship is ready for action you will jump with the rest of us to fight these upstarts. Understood?"

"Yes sir!" Dorrell replied, snapping off a smart salute, thankfully it seemed he wasn't heading to the chopping block for the loss of his flotilla, but rather he was getting another shot at the aliens that had on the other side of the relay.

Unfortunately, he couldn't help but feel apprehensive about fighting them again.

OoOoO

Nearly twenty-four hours had passed since the Persistent Beat had been destroyed and Rear Admiral Richard Shearton was only growing more bothered by the moment. He knew from the messages from HIGHCOM that Vice Admiral Chitose was less than half a hour away in slip space, but until she arrived, he was still rather vulnerable to an attack from the aliens if they returned which they surely would, after all the frigate analogue that had escaped back through FTL had surely gone to summon help.

In response to that fear, the Sangheili ships had joined their UNSC counterparts in a combat formation 100,000 kilometers distant from the construct with weapons at a constant seventy-five percent charge to keep them ready and prevent undue wear-and-tear.

As he watched the construct though, the event he had been waiting for finally happened. Dots of blue light shot from the distance only to be caught and brought to a crawl by the construct before they resolved themselves as ships.

A large number of ships.

There were twenty-two ships that sensors was tagging as cruiser analogues, another forty that were tagged as frigate analogues, with an additional fifteen tagged as destroyers, and then there were seventy-three ships being marked as corvettes.

All in all, Richard couldn't help but feel like he was staring down the throat of another Covenant attack. The ways they had always been so badly outnumbered flooded back before being soundly stomped on. These aliens weren't the Covenant, but even if they were, they would still win, just like they had before.

His thoughts were interrupted as his weapons officer called out, "They are entering the distal radius of the field sir."

"Understood," Richard replied calmly. With a thin smile, he set his thumb on the biometric pad and watched the red 'inferno' button on his command chair light up in response. Checking the sensor screen briefly, he uttered a heartfelt pair of words at the aliens and pressed down on the button, listening to the satisfying click.

OoOoO

It had been a small matter. After the Human-Covenant War it was standard practice for every warship in the UNSC navy to carry stealth nuclear mines, the only differences were how many. Their primary use was for when the ships had to turn tail and run, to be deployed in their wake where the stealth mine would maneuver into the way of perusing ships and detonate, either steering them or giving the fleeing ship a chance to turn the tide of the fight.

That said though, these mines still retained their original purpose for use as stealth minefields against predicted opponents, and in this case they had served their roll perfectly. The twenty-five 30megaton FIGMENT nuclear mines had been set up twenty-five hundred kilometers out from the construct to prevent damage and based on where the ships had appeared previously, on the middle of a straight line path from them to the combined UNSC/Sangheili fleet.

From there it had been the mere click of a button on Rear Admiral Richard Shearton's part to see to the destruction of a large part of the incoming fleet.

OoOoO

"Nukes. They used nukes!" Ardes shouted with rage over the fleet wide communication channels, "How barbaric are these aliens?! They're still using atomic weapons!"

"Admiral, we need to rethink our position here. The fact that we've lost so many ships puts us at a significant disadvantage plus there's the fact that the weapons on at least four of their ships bypass kinetic barriers," Dorrell interjected.

"Are you suggesting we flee, Captain Dorrell?" Trell shot back, stressing the word Captain.

"No sir, merely that we need to reconsider our choices. The fact they're willing to use nuclear weapons so close to a garden world puts us at a significant disadvantage in combat," Dorrell replied as calmly as he could.

There was a drawn out 'hmmmm' over the line before another ship captain cut into the conversation saying, "Admiral Trell, the alien ships are pinging us. If I had to guess they want us to surrender!"

"We will do no such thing!" Trell roared over the line, "What else are those ships doing?"

"Nothing at the moment sir, they're holding position 97,500 klicks out from us."

Again a detracted 'hmmm' came over the line before Trell returned saying, "Order all ships to readiness those nukes we encountered were prepositioned so we won't likely see any more of them. Besides that we still hold a numerical advantage in all areas so we're going to go ahead with our attack

"Understood sir," came from all the captains though some were significantly more reluctant than others.

Dorrell's reply among them.

OoOoO

"Admiral, the alien fleet is advancing, energy readings indicate their weapons ARE charging!" The sensor officer called.

"We'll we have our answer don't we? All ships fire at will," Shearton responded over the fleet wide comm line, his voice rather grim.

While the nuclear minefield had certainly done its job, his fleet was still facing thirteen cruiser analogues, ten destroyer analogues, eight frigate analogues and nineteen corvette analogues.

And now they had to see about slimming that number down a bit. Across the tactical screen, Richard watched as the ships in his battle group fired their MAC guns and their archer missiles and made sure to note the four CCS's launching their plasma torpedoes towards the oncoming fleet. If all went well, they would knock out at least half the ships charging towards them.

Just as he had this thought, he saw the bows of the approaching ships flare with light before suddenly feeling the hull rock under him.

"Report!" He shouted, demanding to know what that had been.

"Mass drivers sir, extremely small but much higher velocity than ours!"

"All ships survived, though the destroyer Meet the Maker is reporting her shields are down!" Various bridge stations reported in.

The Sangheili seemed to have taken umbradge at not having been shot at in the first salvo responded instantly. With an intense white glow, energy projectors on the bottoms of the cruisers charged before suddenly discharging in brilliant white lances of radiation and energy.

One of the shots hit a destroyer analogue amidships before sweeping sideways to bisect two frigate analogues.

All three disappeared in massive fireballs as their reactors were breached.

Another energy projector shot hit one of the cruiser analogues and holed it nose to tail, gutting the ship and leaving it drifting as nothing more than a lifeless hulk.

The other two shots each cut across the paths of the advancing corvettes, instantly destroying six and cutting apart another three.

One unfortunate ship in an attempt to avoid utter destruction pulled up sharply and lost one of its wings where upon it spun into a neighboring ship and remained as they both drifted dead in space.

Richard watched with interest as the alien ships returned fire in a second salvo directed at the CCS class ships, before the fired plasma and MAC rounds plowed into them.

OoOoO

Dorrell watched with horror as the surviving fleet's first salvo impacted only to to be deflected and absorbed by silver-gold shields that flared into existence the moment before the rounds would have impacted.

The alien ships had responded with their own fire, launching a salvo of their own slower moving, but much larger mass driver shots while the four silver-white ships had responded with their burning red energy weapons which had then been followed up with a weapon so terrifying, Ammen was still reeling from seeing the effects.

Four beams of white had shot from the bellies of the 1,600 meter monsters and left the fleet in ruins.

Over a dozen ships were out of the fight and the dreadnought Honor Above had been gutted in a single shot from the beam, with no sign that the ship's impressive kinetic barriers had done anything to stop or even resist the terrifying weapon.

And now as he watched the fleet fire a second salvo, this time directing all their weapons at the silver ships.

He tried to be grateful they had gotten their second salvo off, but the fact was the aliens' opening attack was about to land and after having been on the receiving end of their weapons once before, he was certainly not optimistic.

OoOoO

Richard watch watched as the massed salvo slammed into the alien ships. A handful of rounds missed as their targets had managed to take evasive action or that the rounds hit an oblique enough of an angle that they skipped off the shields that flared into existence.

Most of them however plowed into their targets without a hint of mercy for the sailors inside the vessels. Seven hundred ton and larger MAC rounds hit the mark and with grim satisfaction, Richard watched as all but two of the corvette analogues and four of the frigate analogues were destroyed.

He noted with at first a touch of disapproval but than acceptance that the Sangheili plasma torpedoes were colliding with the cruiser analogues, but given the fact they weren't triggering the aliens' shields, that was an acceptable decision.

At the end of the exchange, there were only four frigate analogues left, two corvette analogues left, five cruiser analogues, and five destroyer analogues.

The exchange was getting more and more even in terms of numbers.

OoOoO

"Sir this is suicide! We need to either flee and return with reinforcements or surrender. We won't survive if we keep fighting!" Captain Dorrell shouted at Admiral Ardes with all the force he could muster. He was going against everything instructed in the turian military to merely suggest such things, but the facts were too clear for him to ignore.

"Captain, and I am using that word for the moment, you will continue to advance and fire upon the aliens or I will order the fleet to open fire on you. Do you understand? I will not tolerate such cowardice from any officer under my command," Ardes roared back.

Ammen found he couldn't help but quail under the admiral's anger, but seeing the aliens' fire power, he had already made his mind up as he cut off the line, ending the conversation with a simple, "Yes sir."

As Captain Ammen Dorrell, sixteen year loyal officer of the Turian Hierarchy looked about the bridge of the ship, he saw doubt and fear in the faces of his fellow sailors.

The fear was the final straw as he began giving orders.

"Helm, give us flank speed towards the alien fleet and begin evasive maneuvers. Comm's, start hailing them in every language we can. Weapons, shunt all power to the engines and kinetic barriers. I for one don't intend to die here for a foolish commander," he said softly.

There was a pause and then a nod from navigation before the ship leapt forward and away from its comrades at arms as it was brought up to flank speed and began to jink and juke erratically. Over the comm lines, Dorrell could hear his communications officer broadcasting the ship's surrender in every known language as they speed towards the alien fleet.

Silently he held his breath and prayed to the spirits for protection for himself and his crew.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**So less then 24 hours after being posted and the story already has over 4,600 hits. Can't say I'm not damn proud about this. I will say I'm sorry chapters aren't as long as people would like, but shorter chapters are easier to get out and are also faster.**

**Besides the above, same stick as usual, whine in PM's to me, not the comments, suggestions are appreciated, and please R&R.**


	6. Christmas Info Dump

**Sorry, but since I'm spending Christmas with my family, there's no new chapter today or possibly tomorrow, though rest assured, I am working on the next chapter. For the time being though, please enjoy a big info dump with a couple new ship classes you'll be seeing shortly, and the rest of the information on the Audacity class.**

**So first off:**

**Name:** Constantinople

**Class:** Constantinople class Heavy Destroyer

**Designation:** CDS-001

**Length:** 529 meters

**Width:** 127 meters

**Height:** 227 meters

**Tonnage:** 10,796 tons empty

**Weapons:**

2x 600 ton MAC guns

52x Archer missile pods

8x Pulse laser turrets

22x 50mm AI controlled autocannons

3x 65megaton Corona nuclear missiles

4x FIGMENT nuclear stealth mines

**Defenses:**

Heavy shields

2.5 meters of Neo-Titanium armor

**Special:**

Reinforced bow for ramming

_**OoOoOoOoO**_

**Name:**Hermes

**Class:** Hermes class Scout-Corvette

**Hull Designation:** SCV - 271

**Length:** 323 meters

**Width:** 107 meters

**Height:** 66 meters

**Armor:** 75 cm Neo-Titanium

**Weapons:**

1 250 ton MAC

2 Plasma Turrets

6 Pulse Laser Turrets

12 50mm Point Defense Cannons

**Extra:**

Prototype Meta-Material stealth hull coating

_**OoOoOoOoO**_

_****_**Class:** CFS class Fleet Carrier  
**Length:** 57,923 meters  
**Height:** 14,022 meters  
**Width:** 21,350 meters

**Weapons:**

1,875 Energy Projectors  
12,500 Plasma Torpedoes  
180,300 Pulse Laser Turrets  
970 Particle Lance Acceleration Ring Turrets  
12,060 Onager Mass Accelerator Point Defense Turrets

**Compliment docked on board:**  
1,600,000 Siren Assault fighters (Next Generation Banshee)  
240,000 Seraph fighter/bombers  
22 CCS class Battlecruisers  
44 SDV class Heavy Corvettes

With a main hangar upon its back capable of docking and holding even the frightening CSO class Super Carrier, the CFS class Fleet Carrier admirably lives up to its designation able to carry and fully supply and repair its own escort fleet of battle cruisers and heavy corvettes along with nearly two million fighter craft capable of both atmospheric and space combat.

While a good deal less heavily armed than the only marginally larger SBN class Super Battleship, the CFS class is no less capable of being a pivotal force of the battlefield with the ability to deploy entire legions of arms with full support and even begin the construction of cities and fleet support points, The CFS class Fleet Carrier is not to be under estimated.

_**OoOoOoOoO**_

_****_**Name:** Audacity  
**Class:** Audacity class Battle Dreadnought  
**Designation:** BDN-000  
**History:** A design far ahead of its time, the Audacity was the final class of ship designed Dr. Robert Mclees before his death during the siege of Earth. Based heavily on captured Forerunner and Covenant technology, the Audacity class was to feature weapons, armor, hull plating, shielding, and slip space technology that at the time were all purely theoretical. Towards the end of the UNSC-Covenant war, most every bit of technology scraped from the Covenant and the Forerunners was put into the Infinity class ships which served as an important testing bed and proving ground for much of the technology that would be necessary to construct the Audacity.

When it was finally deemed acceptable to begin construction, ONI funneled away funding from nearly all sectors of the government in order to pay for the lead ship, Audacity, which was being built deep in dark space between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies. Resources to construct the massive ship were provided by shunting massive asteroids through slip space under the guise of testing more accurate drives and sensor systems. These asteroids were then melted down and forged into the main hull of the ship in a method similar to that used by the Covenant observed during Operation: PROMETHEUS.

The hull of the Audacity class was designed from the bottom up by Dr. McLees it seemed as a spiritual successor to the now famous Halcyon class as the ship features the same honey-combed hull with thousands of structural reinforcements and hydraulic presses able to be activated in an emergency to maintain hull integrity. The Audacity's hull also benefits from a new alloy known as Neo-Titanium which is the TUG's first major step towards reproducing Forerunner hull materials.

The weapons systems of the Audacity class are built around a main quartet of 15,000 ton MACs able to accelerate their projectiles to 70% the speed of light. Heavy plasma turrets fair superior to normal Covenant versions are also featured prominently into the Audacity's weapon layout, all of which feature the so called 'Cortana' upgrades which refine the standard plasma torpedo into a needle thin lance with far superior capabilities.

The newest weapon built deep in the belly of the Audacity class is a special device based off of the remains of several marginally intact Forerunner dreadnoughts. This weapon is known as the SSRG for short and what it does is cause an uncontrolled, so to speak, slip space rupture to form at a precise set of coordinates where everything taken in by the portal is transitioned to nothing more than atomized bits. An example of the affect such a portal has can be observed in the surviving footage of the destruction of the Covenant Super Carrier, Long Night of Solace.


	7. Chapter 5: Shock and Awe (Revised)

**Merry Christmas to all my readers! Here's my present to you all. Its not as long as I'd like, but it serves as a good break point before the battle gets mopped up and I bring in the Spartans.**

**_OoOoOoOoO_**

**My deepest apologies, in my rush to get this out I didn't do my usual proofing and ads a result made several grievous errors, please accept my apologies and this updated version if chapter 5.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"Sir!" "Sir!"

Ardes nearly had to do a double take as two of his officers called out for his attention in perfect harmony. Hesitating no more then a split second, Ardes turned to his tactical officer on the belief that the turian manning the station might have the more pressing issue.

"What is it, tactics?" He called out shortly, his frustration clearly evident. So far the only thing that seemed to be saving his fleet from total destruction was that the aliens' weapons had freakishly long recharge times.

"Sir," the tac officer reported, "the _Pride of the Ancestors_ has broken formation and is charging the enemy fleet at flank speed! They have begun evasive maneuvers as well!"

For a moment, Ardes wasn't sure if he should order his ships to open fire on the fool that was Dorrell, but the that was settled as his comm's officer spoke up.

"Sir, _Pride of the Ancestors_ is broadcasting surrender messages in all known formats and languages. I believe they intend to hide in the enemy fleet."

That settled it for Ardes. His voice trembling with rage and cold with fury, he turned and spoke to the communications officer, "Open a line to all ships, you are to open fire on the _Pride of the Ancestors_ for Captain Dorrell intends to betray his people and surrender to the enemy."

As he finished, he rounded on navigation, he roared out his next command shouting, "Bring us to the front of the fleet and get all of our guns pointed at that traitor. Start shooting as soon as you have a solution."

OoOoO

"Now would you look at that..."

Rear Admiral Shearton's pronouncement had gotten at least the temporary attention of the entire bridge crew as they stared at the tactical display to watch as one of the alien ships bolted away from the enemy fleet, screaming bloody murder on every available communications channel.

The ship in question was making what was probably top speed towards them and would arrive in only a few minutes while despite the desperate maneuvers her captain was putting her under. What made the situation far more interesting though, was that the rest of the alien fleet had rounded on the frigate analogue within a few moments of its break and had begun to open fire on it.

More interesting, the cruiser that had been holding position in the back had hauled up into the front for a clear shot at the frigate.

"Tac, how far out is Admiral Chitose?"

"Less than forty-five seconds sir." Was the brief answer.

Shearton had come up with an idea, a daring one, but an idea. If that ship fleeing away from the rest of its kin intended to surrender, Admiral Chitose was in a splendid position to separate them from the potential wealth of information.

"Comm's link with tac and send Admiral Chitose exit coordinates three klicks to the port of the lead cruiser and tell her to be ready for a bump."

"On it sir, and done," was the joint reply."

There was a two second wait before the comm's officer spoke up saying, "Admiral Chitose acknowledges and confirms revised exit coordinates."

With that recognition, Richard sat back in his command chair with a touch of ease in features as he said, alright, now weapons, get the guns recharged on the double."

OoOoO

For Captain Ammen Dorrell, his crew, and the entirety of the _Pride of the Ancestors_, life and death were merely one poor maneuver of the helmsman away from each other. For the moment though, the officer steering the ship was doing a fine job and had yet to let them take more than a grazing shot since the rest if the fleet had opened up on them.

Unfortunately it seemed their shots were getting closer with every shot.

They were still sixty-five thousand kilometers out from the other fleet when everything changed.

As he watched the tactical display, Dorrell spread his mandibles in a frown as he watched a section just to the _Palaven's_ left grew staticky and unclear. Turning to the sensor officer, he demanded to know what was happening when someone, likely the sensors officer switched the tac display to a live feed of the space the fleet occupied.

OoOoO

"Sir, spatial anomaly detected three kilometers to port. Unknown composition! I can't figure out what it is!" The sensor officer shouted in panic.

With a casual flick, Admiral Ardes Trell switched the massive tactical display over to a live feed of the space to the Palaven's left, and what he saw left him slack jawed.

A section of space some eight or ten kilometers in diameters had sprung to life. Where there should have been nothing, there was now a mass of boiling white from which stretched a tangled net of electric blue lines that writhed and twisted like something alive.

As he watched, the prow of an object, larger than any ship he had ever seen began to emerge, flanked on either side by two smaller ships, each of them both at least a kilometer and a half tall but dwarfed by the ship in the center.

Trell's thoughts didn't get any further as the prow of the massive ship drove through the bridge of the Palaven.

OoOoO

Captain Dorrell watched with horror as the swirling wrongness in space expanded before proceeding to disgorge the largest ships Ammen had ever seen. He caught sight of two kilometer and a half high ships emerging and angling away from the physics defying wrongness as a five kilometer high monstrosity suddenly heaved forward out of what was rapidly becoming apparent was a portal.

The monstrous ship simply continued to pour further and further out of the portal and Dorrell watched with open mouthed horror as the ship still emerging from the portal simply ran over the Palaven, a ripple of silver-gold shields the only sign from the ship it had even registered the dreadnought that had been in its way.

The ship crashed further through the line of the turian of the fleet till to the shock of everyone in the fleet, nearly fifteen kilometers of ship sat in the middle of the remaining battle group, and then the ship came to life.

OoOoO

Vice Admiral (lower half) Kongo Chitose had enjoyed the smooth transition into normal space out of slip space with a the standard nonchalance of an officer who had been through the event too many times to count.

Standing tall and well filled out, Admiral Chitose's appearance mostly belayed the Japanese origin of her name as she was an imposing six foot two inches tall with only tell-tale traits in her facial features owning themselves to her asiatic heritage. Like the straight, solid black hair that was kept at a constant sixteen centimeters to meet regulations or the very slight almond shape of her hard, gold eyes that were at odds with the strangely playful grin on her face as the ship came to a halt after fully exiting slip space.

"Admiral," Commander George Lash called out from navigation a touch of amusement in his tone, "I think we hit something as we were coming out of slip space. Cameras didn't get much of chance, but they do show what appeared to be a cruiser class ship directly ahead as we had exited our portal."

To her credit, Admiral Chitose took a moment to look at the tactical display that was showing a cooling cloud of debris where the ship had entered real space and the now disoriented alien fleet before checking the pictures navigation had had pulled up.

Giving a wry smile, Chitose decided now was an appropriate time to make a crack if ever there was in a fight for a commanding officer as she said, "Yes, I do believe we did hit something, however it wasn't friendly so there's nothing to worry about. Now comm's, would you kindly get me a line to Rear Admiral Shearton? I would like to know the situation before we begin popping hulls."

"Yes ma'am," was the quick response.

OoOoO

Rear Admiral Shearton had been watching with interest as the alien fleet fell apart and struggled to regroup after what had likely been their command ship was run over by the sudden appearance of Vice Admiral Chitose's fleet.

His observations were brought to a halt though a much woman much younger than himself with hard gold eyes appeared on the display in front if him giving a small smile before saying, "Admiral Shearton, think you could brief my crew and I on the immediate situation before start shooting? We did notice one of the alien ships has split from the fleet and is heading your way with its squawker going."

"Yes good to know they caught your attention. Right before you arrived, the rest if that fleet had just begun shooting at that ship after it starting shouting and making its way towards us so I'd hazard they don't want it communicating with us. If you like, we'll take care of it and you'll be free to deal with the rest of their fleet provided you avoid hitting the construct."

"Seems sound enough, I believe we can accomplish this," Chitose replied before ending the connection.

There was a brief pause from her _Audacity_ class Battle Dreadnought and the two Infinity class battleships alongside it before everything sprang to life across the three ships.

With a grim smile, Richard watched as each of the _Infinity_ classes suddenly shot a series of heavy frigates from their under carriages to join the fight, a dozen total suddenly joining the fight at knife range while the Audacity class began to launch its own compliment of internally stored ships.

Thundering out of the ventral bays came four of the UNSC's newest and proudest ships, the _Orion_ class heavy cruiser. Beside them were a dozen destroyers that rapidly spread out to take formation all the while taking pot shots at the alien fleet.

Chitose's ship wasn't idle itself either as the gun batteries and missile tubes across the hull had begun during nonstop to wipe out the alien fleet.

That though, left Rear Admiral Shearton with his own issue. Namely the alien frigate charging towards them full speed hollering at the top of its lungs.

"Nimitz," Richard ordered, watching the AI's holograph pop back into being, "Coordinate with the rest of our fleet's AI's as needed, I want you to disable that ship until further notice and bring it to a full stop, make sure they can't overload whatever they're using for power as well."

"On it, sir," the AI replied with a crisp salute.

OoOoO

For Captain Dorrell, things only seemed to be going from bad to worse with each passing moment with the only upside being that his ship wasn't being shot at anymore.

What had him frightened beyond measure though was that the fifteen kilometer long monstrosity had suddenly gone and started disgorging even more ships, four dreadnoughts and over a dozen cruisers in fact. That was to say nothing of the fact that the two five kilometer ships escorting it had launched six cruisers each. The mere idea of doing such a thing was preposterous to him. Fortunately, his rather grim chain of thoughts was interrupted by a shout from communications officer.

"Sir, one of the alien ships has replied to our hails!"

Before he could even consider giving a response the lights on the bridge went out.

**_OoOoOoOoO_**

**So another chapter ends and with over 12,000 views I have to say I'm a bit overwhelmed. Thanks to all of you for your support and reviews please continue!**


	8. Chapter 6: Know Your Enemy

With a satisfied smile, Rear Admiral Richard Shearton watched the alien destroyer analogue drift dead in space halfway between his battle group and Vice Admiral Chitose's, the only matter left now was how to make hard contact with the ship, but he didn't plan to do that till he had a few things sorted out first.

"Nimitz, how's the translation vector going?" Richard barked out, not bothering to turn away from the view of the stricken ship.

"Quite well sir, with help from the AI Alexandria aboard the _Temerity_, we've made much faster progress than we expected to. So far though we've established that the race we are in contact with are known as the 'Turians' but there are at least thre or more races as well known to them going by their language and the broadcasts they were making before, which were surrender signals." The AI replied.

"Good, anything else we should know?" Richard asked back.

"Yes sir," Nimitz replied, a touch if superiority entering his voice as he answered, "These aliens don't seem to have any sense of classifying data, sir. One if the primary items we've been using as Rosetta Stone so to speak translates as a codex and contains among other things, a complete star chart of their known space along with coordinates for more of those constructs."

For a moment, Nimitz paused, apparently gathering a bulk of new information from his fellow AI's as they continued the translation. A few seconds later he continued speaking saying, "Yes, the star chart contains a total list of all known planets and which races they belong to along with the location of their seat of government which appears to reside upon a large space station."

"And we know where all of these planets and stations are?"

"Yes sir."

"Very well, notify me when the translation program is done so we can pick a group for boarding," Shearton responded.

"Admiral, if I may suggest, the _Thermopylae_, a Spartan vessel accompanied Admiral Chitose to our current location and is now on station. If you need a group for boarding, I believe the Spartans would be most willing." Nimitz supplied.

For a brief moment, Richard was quiet before he nodded and spoke up. "Very well, get their commander on the horn, tell them they'll have a ship to board in a few minutes."

"Yes sir,"

OoOoO

For Captain Ammen Dorrell and his crew, things had only gone from bad to worse since they had followed his decision to break away from the fleet and avoid the complete destruction that had befallen their fellows by surrendering. First their former comrades at arms had begun during on them, then they'd watched in muted silence as the entirety of the fleet, nearly two thirds of all the turian's dreadnoughts in fact, had been erased from existence without so much as scratching the hull of their destroyer, and finally they had gotten a reply from the first alien fleet to appear in system only for everything aboard the _Pride of the Ancestors_ besides gravity and life support to shut down.

Now he and his crew waited for the inevitable shot that would bring about their sudden painful deaths in the harshness of vacuum, except something rather interesting decided to happen. As they waited for destruction, they were shocked to suddenly hear the intra-ship com lines crackle to life followed by a hard turian voice speaking out of them through the entirety of the ship as someone declared their intentions.

"CREW OF THE_ PRIDE OF THE ANCESTORS_," the voice ordered loudly, "WE WILL BE BOARDING YOUR VESSEL IN SHORT ORDER. PROVIDED YOU LAY DOWN YOUR ARMS AND COMPLY YOU WILL NOT BE HARMED. RESISTANCE WILL BE MET WITH LETHAL FORCE."

As the com lines shut back down, Dorrell sighed, the aliens had certainly made themselves clear, though how they had learned to speak turian was a question for another time if he lived long enough.

OoOoO

Deep within the belly of the heavily armored stealth destroyer _Thermopylae_, seventy-one figures sat in a large auditorium around an enormous floor-to-ceiling holo projector that was currently displaying a static three dimensional image of the disabled turian ship, Pride of the Ancestors as they had been informed it was called.

Despite their curiosity about the ship hanging in midair, the figures seated in the auditorium kept their gave focused on the seventy-second person in the room, a tall imposing woman, easily over seven feet tall with short cropped white-blonde hair and hard silver eyes who was reading over the contents of a data pad in her hands at the moment. When she reached the end of it, she moved the device to her side before calling out into the audience around her, her voice booming without any amplification.

"SPARTANS, ATTEN-HUT!"

Instantly all seventy-two of the Spartans had shot to attention as a holographic figure faded into view before them. Though time had certainly taken its toll on her and she even carried a cane, her face was unmistakably that of Dr. Catherine Halsey, second in command of ONI and mother of the spartan program.

"At ease Spartans," she said calmly, waving her free hand before continuing to speak, watching as the seventy-two Spartans around her, including their commander instantly took a seat as one.

With a small smile, Dr. Halsey began to speak saying, "Very well, as you understand it, your mission for the time being will be to board and secure the turian cruiser, _Pride of the Ancestors_. You are to secure the crew and preserve them if at all possible, however if they resist, lethal force is authorized against those resisting and no one else. Once you have secured the ship and the personnel, we will have Nimitz, Rear Admiral Shearton's AI restore power at which point you will dock the ship in the _Temerity's_ fore docking bay for continued examination. Are there any questions Spartans?"

"Do we have a method for communication, Vice Admiral Halsey?" One of the Spartans asked, his hand raised in question.

"Yes," she quickly replied, "It was completed only a few minutes ago and according to Alexandria from the Temerity it is as correct as it can be. Use it as needed. Any other questions?"

When none were forth coming, Dr. Halsey nodded and spoke again saying, "Very well, I'll be on my way then. Lt. Commander Adrianna will continue your briefing."

With that, Halsey's hologram vanished from view and the planning began.

OoOoO

Aboard the _Pride of the Ancestors_, a blissful, if tenuous peace had settled over the entirety of the ship as the crew waited for the inevitable boarding that was to come. Only that peace was suddenly shattered as a wave of orange light suddenly illuminated the ship from the inside like the scanning beams in a security checkpoint. They started at the bow and passed all the way aft through what Dorrell guessed was engineering before sweeping back up the length of the ship and repeating the process twice more till everyone understood the light wasn't hostile, but it did not prevent them from being thoroughly on edge.

Feeling the stress acutely himself, Dorrell activated his omni-tool to call into the com link one last time before they were boarded.

"All crew, remember to offer no resistance. This is our best chance at survival and possibly even ending this fight without anymore losses," he called.

For the moment it seemed to be working as he saw nods among the bridge crew before a series of metallic clangs echoed through the hull. There were at least three he counted, but there might have been as many as six, Dorrell was sure of that.

His omni-tool sparked to life suddenly as a series of comm lines suddenly flooded with chatter, all of them saying the same thing:

"We have a hull breach."

Then Dorrell knew it was over.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Apologies for the short chapter, I fly out to Florida in a few hours so I decided to end with the cliff hanger and just get this posted, hope you all can accept that.**


	9. Sci-Fi, Science, and Mocking the Stupid

**To my dear and loyal readers, please pardon the fact that this isn't the chapter update you were hoping it would be. Rather this is a brief update during my vacation to address a rather large number of nasty, vile PM's I've received along with a few angry, whiny reviews for this story. I've decided rather than responding by PM and possibly having to do so again at a later time, I would simply address the concerns people have raised here in an intermissions chapter during my brief vacation.**

**Issue one:** WHINE WHINE WHINE a Nimitz class carrier weighs a 100,000 tons WHINE WHINE.

This is a rather simple to deal with. First off, a Nimitz class carrier is built entirely out of STEEL a material over twice as dense as TITANIUM, the main ingredient in UNSC ship building. As a result the weight of a box with the height, width, and length of a marathon and the thickness of its armor would weigh in at a paltry 14,957 tons, which is an over estimate for the amount actually needed.

Thus Titanium is a far lighter metal as are its alloys so don't bitch and whine about ships being bug and not weighing as much as you think they should.

**Issue Two: **I am the one writing this story. Not you. If I am not writing this story in a manner that you enjoy, sod right off, I'll keep on writing views or no views as I wanted to write this since I didn't like the majority if Halo/ME crossovers.

**Issue Three:** This is Science Fiction people or rather few individuals. Suspend your disbelief and enjoy the story like everyone else seems to be doing.

**Issue Four:** I'll tolerate the ignorant who don't know better and can thus be taught, but if you come in here and start leaving rude comments and whining, I will get your comments deleted.

I won't brook the stupid, for that means they persist in error despite knowing they are wrong.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Thanks everyone for taking time to read over this and my apologies to the loyal readers who haven't been royal pains in the ass.**


	10. Chapter 7: Old Friends

**Woohoo! 30,000 views, hurrah!**

**OoOoOoOoO**

Lt. Commander Adrianna waited for a brief moment before chinning her comm line to the rest of her Spartans. "Grey and blue teams, you will secure the crew quarters. Red, green, and yellow teasms, you will secure engineering. Black team and I will be securing the bridge, understand?" She called. Instantly, five cool blue lights across her HUD lit up in the position reserved for team leaders followed by eleven more in the positions for her team.

"Alright, breach on my go," Adrianna ordered, taking one instant to gather herself before giving the order.

"Go, all teams breach!"

Instantly the therrmite-composite paste on the hull below them ignited in a two meter diameter ring that burned as magnesium bright before dimming as Adrianna hopped briefly up and then down, landing on the circle which popped free with a metaslic pang as it dropped out beneath her to clang heavily on the deck below where she landed with a one ton thud at which point she moved out from the breach as she picked out the aliens around the bridge, her FLIR sensors building a picture of the room around her between lowlight and heat imaging as eleven more rapid thuds on the deck followed behind her.

As she shouted for the aliens to get down on the ground with their hands behind their heads, Adrianna heard how the software translated her message, sending out an almost guttural, barking, rasping series of noises that the crew around her hesitantly began to obey.

To be honest, she was a bit surprised, the aliens, the turians, looked like bastardized elites, maybe with that warping came less honor and more logic she considered briefly.

Then she was back to making sure the crew obeyed their commands, all but one of them had, one at what looked like a command platform. With a silent motion for cover, Adrianna advanced on the alien till she was a scant five meters away at which point she questioned him. "Why have you not complied with the given order?"

OoOoO

The alien's breach into his ship had been as sudden as when the lights had gone out. Firsdt had been the flash of light that had left their dark accustomed eyes unable to see as suddenly creature after creature had suddenly dropped into the hull behind the cut out piece, thudding about the bridge of the Pride of the Ancestors.

For Captain Dorrell everything was going as expected, except the order from one of them to get down on the ground. All of his bridge crew complied, though he himself did not. One of the heavy giants approached him, he could feel the deck reverberaste with their boot steps.

"Why have you not complied with the given order?"

The question was valid, but as Dorrell finally got a look at his questioner, he felt his mandibles flatten in fear as his eyes widened.

It was huge. Even if it was wearing battle armor, the creature was still taller than a krogan. Pearlescent green plates of armor gleamed over a convoluted black suit beneath it. Most disconcerting though was the face, or rather where the face should have been.

Rather than a face the armored giant boasted polarized gold visor that left him completely disconcerted at the lack of facial features.

"If I am to be executed, I will be standing when it happens," Dorrell finally forced himself to reply.

The armored giant aimed at him down what he assumed was some form of rifle before a reply in turian echoed from its helmet.

"Our orders were to secure your ship. Having you and your crew complying with orders merely establishes certain authority."

Ammen paused as he mulled over that answer before he nodded saying, "Very well then, I Captain Ammen Dorrell do hereby surrender the Pride of the Ancestors to your military under the conditions of proper treatment for myself and my crew."

There was a pause as if the figure were communicating with some higher authority before it spoke again saying, "Understood. I Lt. Commander Adrianna do hereby accept your surrender."

Adrianna. That was a weird name by council species standards, but he was not going to judge the beings accepting his surrender on the chance of it earning them ill will.

OoOoO

"All teams, report status," Adrianna called through mike. She needed to know if the lack of resistance was real, or if the turian soldiers in question were actual surrendering.

There was a pause the length of a double heart beat before blue light proceeded to flicker on in status ready for each of her team leaders. "Any resistance?" She called out, only to receive a series of no ma'am's in response.

Cuing her external mic, Adrianna spoke to the alien captain before her. "Very well, have your soldiers move to somewhere from which they can be taken off ship. You will be transferred elsewhere as prisoners of war," she said, listening to the gruff translation issue from her helmet before the captain nodded and began issuing commands to his crew that translated to something along the lines of what Adrianna had ordered, sending the sailors heading towards their shuttle bay.

OoOoO

"Admiral Chitose, Lt. Commander Adrianna of the Spartans reports that the turian ship has been taken without resistance. She seemed disappointed," a femine voice called from a holotank as light resolved into the form a woman in white plate armor.

"Thank you Joan, anything else I need to know about the situation?" The admiral responded.

"Yes ma'am," the Turians are currently being prepped to be brought over by shuttle to the fleet's prisoner ships. Besides that update it was found during study that the turian ship's drive core uses a design based around an element they call eezo which has a negative or positive mass index depending upon the charge applied to it. As a result of its unpredictability, we are unsure if it would be safe to take the ship with us through slip space." The AI responded.

"Very well, speak to Rear Admiral Shearton about-" whatever else she had planned to say was cut off as Joan brought up a tactical display showing the space some three thousand kilometers distant as a slip space portal even larger than the _Temerity's_ appeared before suddenly disgorging a trio of CSO class super carriers, nine CAS class assault carriers, three dozen DDS class carriers, thirty RCS class armored cruisers, sixty-four Reverence class cruisers, over two hundred CCS class battle cruisers, and nearly a thousand destroyers and frigates.

But the slip space portal wasn't done yet.

As Vice Admiral Kongo Chitose watched, the portal swelled and suddenly a ship that stretched the imagination with its size emerged.

Nearly sixty kilometers long, fifteen kilometers tall, and over twenty kilometers wide, the mindbendingly massive CFS class Fleet Carrier outclassed every ship and every creation the UNSC and the Sangheili had bar two, both of which were reserved for the personal orders and directions of their respective races' Commander and Chief.

Knowing the monster hanging in the center of its glittering fleet of ships was on their side was a tremendous relief to Admiral Chitose.

"Admiral, we're being hailed by the leader of the Sangheili fleet from the CFS class _Resolution's Duty_," Joan said from the side.

"Put them on screen Joan," Chitose said calmly, wondering which Sangheili was in charge of the astounding fleet before her.

As Joan complied, a massive image filled the forward view screen, displaying a Sangheili in royal purple armor with long cape draping from his shoulders to sweep the floor. As Chitose locked eyes with the Sangheili, she instantly recognized the severed mandibles on the left side of his face as she gave a slim smile before saying, "Supreme Commander Rtas 'Vadumee, I'm thankful for the overwhelming response."

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Alright people, I'm still off in Florida so I don't have a computer and thus this chapter is much shorter and entirely iphone written. As such, please do try to be understanding about the shortness and any mistakes I've made.**


	11. Chapter 8: Unknown Consequences

Author response time first off.

First off yes the Sangheili have dropped the 'ee' from their names now that they've left the covenant, that was an accident. Next;

(Can't believe this name. I mean really? FFS people...)  
Osamabinladenson: The curb stomp stereotype exists because Halo technology, tactics, and such are intrinsically better than Mass Effect's. So it's not a stereotype if its true now shove off.

**Hannahbannamontana: They aren't pulling them 'out of their asses' as you seem to think. First fact is the UNSC basically never waged an offensive war against the Covenant barring a few occasions so nearly their entire infrastructure was still intact after the war minus possibly the people needed to run it which they won't have been lacking in my story for reasons I'll be explaining later. Fact two is the covenant/Sangheili have always built lots of ships specifically large ones, and I also haven't said how much of their total fleet is present so for all you know they have pulled every in service ship to come to the battle. Fact three, no one has a black hole device dip shit. The UNSC has slip space portal generators and that's as close as you'll get, but they are far different than black hole weapons.**

**Ghouls123: Elite fanboy? I do like them, specifically the Halo 2 variety as they were the coolest in my opinion, but the UNSC is hardly defenseless as well. They have the microdyson sphere of onyx capable or building almost anything as well as forerunner engineers and the like, so sod off.**

**Ghannah: Who said they gave it to them, who said it's unlimited, and who says, besides you, it's dumb?**

**Now thank you to everyone else who were not a bunch of pretentious assholes and have been MASSIVELY supportive of my fic, giving it over 8,000 hits in less than a day. With that out of the way, we'll now get on with the story which is what I'm sure you're really here for.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"For the record, please state your full name, your rank, and any military identifucation number you might have."

"Ammen Dorrell, Captain, identification number PAL7499025119AD," Dorrell replied wearily to the human sitting across the table from him in the small darkened room he recognized as an interrogation cell. There was a single small light illuminating nothing but himself, his chair, and his edge of the table he sat at. Directly across from him was a human, he thought it was human at least, that sat fully shrouded in the darkness, brief glimpses of the being's face being occasionally provided when the fragrant stick it was smoking from flared at the tip.

"Why did your race attack us, Captain Dorrell?" The human asked calmly, though even through the translator resentment bled through.

At this question, Dorrell felt his mandibles flatten against his face. They wanted a reason, and as he thought more about it, the prevention of the relay activation was seeming more and more shaky to him. Still, his men were being treated well for the time being and given that that might depend on his behavior, he was inclined to continue with his cooperation.

"We were ordered by our high command to prevent your activation of the Mass Relay and to proceed with your races' subjugation for attempting to violate Citadel Council law," Dorrell responded hesitantly, but with a certain firmness that showed his belief that they had been right.

"Citadel Council Law? Seems a bit of stretch to try and subjugate a people you know kpnothing about. Tell me Dorrell, how often does this sort of subjugation happen?" The human responded.

"The subjugation of other species occurs every few years, perhaps once a decade."

"So you enslave other peoples? I don't think that's the best thing you should be doing," the human responded calmly.

"It is hardly enslavement. Our client raves don't have the full benefits our species does, but it is not enslavement!" Dorrell snapped in defensiveness.

"I would say it is Dorrell. It may be a rather pleasant one, but it is still enslavement when one race controls any other and denies them privlages and rights. So I'm rather sorry to say your hierarchy will most likely be losing its 'client species' rather soon if the UNSC has anything to say about it,"

"What does that stand for?" Dorrell asked, trying to push away the cooled pit of fear that had formed when the man said thast they would lose their client rasces.

"UNSC? It stands for United Nations Space Command. Now why don't you tell me something important Dorrell, would your people agree to peace, or will _total war_ be necessary?"

Dorrell hesitated again. He and much of his crew had seen the thousand plus ship fleet arrive as they were boarding what one of the massively armored humans on his ship had called an '_Albatross_ drop ship'. The fleet had been absurd in size, and several hundred of the ships had been at least dreadnought sized while more had been even larger than the _Destiny Ascension_ and three were even larger than the ship he was aboard, a vessel the humans said was named the _Temerity_.

Then there had been that last monster. The final ship to emerge from the portal was some ten percent larger in size than the Citadel itself, but it was so much more massive as a solid object compared to the thin frame of the Citadel.

"We would likely be agreeable to peace, though it will likely be brokered by the Asari," he replied. The fleet assembled outside the ship he was in was large enough to overwhelm the combined fleets of every race in Citadel space... He had no option but to cooperate if his people were to survive.

OoOoOoOoO

Councilor Sparatus took a seat at the small, round table in the center of the bare, polished metal room as he watched his fellow council it's take seats at equally spaced positions around the table. The mood was certainly tense in the tiny room as the salarian councilor, Gelor, had not even informed the other two councilors as to why he needed to suddenly call for a private meeting out of the public's eye.

Though he couldn't help but think he did know what was on the salarian's mind as councilor Tevos finally broke the deepening silence.

"Gelor, would you please tell Sparatus and myself why you have felt the need to to call for this meeting?" She asked.

"Yes, please do tell," Sparatus added to afirm his appearance of ignorance.

Gelor nodded once before taking a breath to begin explaining. "Though a breach of trust, STG groups keep track of all fleet elements of both Asari and Turian navies."

That, was quite the admission. To openly admit you spied on your closest allies was a dangerous thing, but the fact that Gelor had admitted to such a thing meant to Tevis and Sparatus that the subject at hand was truly grave.

And with how he started out with tracking their fleets, Sparatus knew what the next subject was.

"That is a grave admission Gelor. You had best explain this," Sparatus growled.

"I must agree with Sparatus on this Gelor, you must tell us what could justify such actions."

"Just over thirty hours ago, two-thirds of the entire turian navy was marshaled and dispatched through the 314th Mass Relay. After deployment and confirmation that they were going to enter the relay, they went dark. This deployment included twenty-two of the total thirty-eight turian dreadnoughts."

"They've gone dark?" Tevis asked hesitantly.

"Yes, since passing the relay no further communications have been received," Gelor confirmed, only to be cut off by Sparatus who had realized that the game was over and he needed to come clean.

"That's not completely true, Gelor. We've had one additional communication from the armada. It was a compressed data package that contained a record of what happened past the relay," Sparatus replied, all of his will seeming to leave him.

"And what did happen past Mass Relay 314, Councilor Sparatus?" Tevos asked, suddenly upping the ante with the use of Sparatus's title.

Rather than answer by speaking, Sparatus linked his omni-tool to the holo-projector mounted in the center of the table and sent the data package out.

The holo was blank at first, of course there were no ships in system to register anything with their sensors, but that changed as suddenly the entire turian fleet dropped into existence beside the Mass Relay.

After a moment to gain their bearings, the turian fleet began advancing towards the battle group holding position a hundred thousand kilometers distant made up of ships of two wildly different base designs.

Then the hit the mines.

In an instant the nuclear spheres appeared in the holo before fading to show nothing but the wrecked remains of dozens of turian ships.

There was visible shock about the table as the other councilors watched, though Sparatus simply hung his head having already watched the final fate of his people's ships.

The two fleets had begun to exchange fire between each other, the weapons of the unknown species carving through vast swaths of the mightiest turian ships as if they were made of naught but paper.

The portal appeared next, its appearance heralding the end of the armada as appeared directly to the side of the _Palaven_ which with the rest of the fleet now fired on the fleeing _Pride of the Ancestors_.

Then the ships had emerged. The monstrous behemoth a third the length of the Citadel that had simply run over the Palaven and remained silent scant minute after emerging into existence.

Then it was alive with light and fire.

Weapon rounds impacted on flaring shields but showed no sign of damage before the massive ship retaliated. Thousands of missiles and mass driver rounds tore into the turian fleet, shredding vessels left and right.

Steadily the image grew fuzzier as ships were destroyed left and right till only one ship was left, a small frigate fleeing towards the Mass Relay.

It wasn't to be.

A shot from the super ship reached out and directly as it touched the running ship, the image cut out as the source was destroyed.

Following the playing of the holo, silence reigned in the tiny room before Tevos spoke up to ask a question.

"The ship offering surrender, the _Pride of the Ancestors_, what happened to it?" She asked.

"We don't know. As soon as that super ship appeared, its shields prevented out sensors from seeing what was happening on its far side. If so we must contend with the possibility that these aliens have prisoners who would surrender along with a fully intact ship and data banks." Sparatus replied.

"They will know everything. Eventually. Perhaps already do. Given that they do not seem to relie on mass effect fields, its possible that their FTL can bypass the relay systems." Gelor added.

"You mean to say..." Tevos began only to be cut off by the salarian.

"That we will encounter them again soon? Most likely. They may even be on their way here or two other major planets. Likely here and major turian targets."

"Why turian? And how could you say so with certainty Gelor," Tevos remarked, panic finally beginning to crack her exterior.

"The Turians attacked them first and have so far been the only aggressors. Therefore these aliens would likely only attack turian targets and possibly here given its central location."

"By the goddess," Tevos whispered quietly as she buried her face in her hands.

"May the spirits forgive us..." Sparatus likewise chanted.

Gelor looked over his two compatriots before standing as he said, "please excuse me. Must begin creation of a first contact package as well as preparation for these alien's arrival. I think we will see them within a week, no more than two. Much preparation needed."

As Gelor strode out towards the door, his two companions sighed and stood from the table before sharing a look of intense worry before leaving, knowing the salarian was right.

Though the salarians enjoyed their fights won before they started, Gelor's fast thinking was proving invaluable at the moment.

Unfortunately, his time estimate was exaggerated.

They didn't have weeks.

They had hours.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**So another new chapter, more complaints dealt with, and more plot development. While the Council is still a bunch of self absorbed asses, I think the salarian councilor would be less so given that new ones come in so often and don't have the time to settle in.**


	12. Chapter 9: Precipice

**First off, I'm still traveling so chapters are all still iPhone written.**

**Luckiswithyouall: Who says the Citadel Council will prevail? And if you read the codex, the treaty of Firaxen says that the Turians only get to have 38 dreadnoughts. So no luck for you and the council will not be buffed. Given their lack of change in a few millennia, I did not see the thirty-five years generating any real change for them compared to the growth it would bring the post war UNSC and Sangheili.**

**The Skipper's Commandant: You've asked what really a pretty nasty question in terms of its complexity, but I'll do my best to answer you fully.  
To myself at least, halo tech will always be superior to mass effect tech and their civilizations will share a similar position in terms of advantage for the following reasons. First off, the world of mass effect, without a human presence, is incredibly stagnant. In the five hundred years since the first space flight, humanity has advanced from massive chemical rockets with only a few hundred pounds in payload to the massive ships that are the 1.2 km cruisers and 3 km carriers that the UNSC fielded during the war. They've advance from those rockets for payload boosting to orbital elevators hundreds of meters in diameter and thousands of kilometers tall, things that exceeded what even the protheans managed in their entire existence and comparatively in terms of complexity far exceed even the relays. They one a 27 year war that saw some four hundred colonies destroyed and dozens of billions dead yet humanity came back with avengence.  
In that same five hundred years, there has been the xenocide of the Rachni and the Krogan rebellions which saw perhaps a few billion dead and the destruction of one race and nearly the death of another. They had the Geth rebellion but rather than figure out what they had done wrong, the Council labeled the stud illegal and severally stunted any growth that could ever occur for computers.  
Besides that, the council species have been using the same weapons for thousands of years where it took just four years for the UNSC to have energy projectors and they even had lasers and energy shields before the end of the war.  
In other words, Halo tech advances far more rapidly than the Citadel species ever have. Next support is that against covenant ships, which can take numerous attacks before even losing shields and have demonstrated the ability to keep going even with holes clean through their ships far outmatch even the Reapers. The Reapers and everyone else rely on kinetic barriers which don't stop energy based weapons which is the entirety of the covenant arsenal and even some parts of the human arsenal meaning that Mass Effect things just can't defend themselves properly against Halo things.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

Hood stood looking at the three holo projections standing before him, communicated by signal from other ships to display a hardlight replica of the person on the other end. It was based on forerunner devices used originally for combat but adapted for communication. As he faced the three projections he knew each of the people on the other ends were seeing the exact replicas of the rest of their group, allowing for them to communicate in a more realistic fashion compared to the standard view screen.

"Admiral, Supreme Commander. As agreed by the Arbiter, the Sangheili Council, and the UEG government, your orders are as follows," he said calmly, his iron calm filling the words with solidarity.

"You will jump together to here," he pointed out a region of empty space on the galaxy map, deep within turian territory, but far from any colony or relay. "There you divide your combined fleet into eight battle groups and await our orders to either stand down, join us at the Citadel, or to advance into the turian held systems."

When both commanders nodded their agreement, Hood continued speaking saying, "If you are ordered to the turian systems, you will begin a live feed across all bands to every available ship and station of our negotiations if they are still on going. If negotiations have broken down, you will begin with assaults upon all orbiting and spacefaring constructs within each system after providing them with a five minute warning to evacuate. After five minutes, you will destroy any and all space born objects in system besides the Mass Relays and then await further orders. Please make sure no stray rounds hit the populated planets, we have no need to cause excess civilian casualties. You will hold your systems unless you feel the situation is untenable and will await further orders from either the Arbiter or myself. Are your orders understood?"

"Yes Lord Hood."

"Yes Admiral."

"Very good, move out the Arbiter and I expect that we will arrive at the Citadel within the hour," he replied before ending the communication with the two commanders to speak privately to the Arbiter.

"Something on your mind Arbiter?" he asked solemnly.

A nod answered him before the Arbiter began to speak, his voice deep and low as he asked, "Is this the best course of action Lord Admiral Hood?"

Hood gave a slightly tired sigh before replying as he said, "For a second time, humanity has been forced into war without offering provocation. The information we've harmed shows that this Citadel is the center of Council space and where we'll find their government. I feel that it is in our best interests to make a tremendous show of force, even a violent show if needed, to demonstrate that these aliens have bitten off more than they can chew and had best capitulate. Besides that these turians keep numerous other races in a subservient position, not unlike how the unggoy were treated in the Covenant. And that enslavement, gilded or not, is something humanity cannot condone."

"Then we are in agreement as both myself and the council reached a very similar conclusion with this addition: if we don't confront them now, we won't be able to regulate our borders well enough in the future as they might know other routes into our space."

"A good judgment. Then let us be done and begin," Hood replied before muttering to himself as the communication closed.

"Before we have to kill all the damn bastards..."

OoOoOoOoO

At the Citadel, things were moving at a frantic pace rarely seen in the chamber that represented the height of galactic culture to those that used it. At the current time though, no civilians or reporters were present in the entirety of the building, instead they had been grudgingly forced out of the building by C-Sec guards only to have their mass replaced by a massive influx of ambassadors and military commanders from nearly every species in Citadel Space barring the Yahg, the Quarians, the Geth, and the Krogan.

All of them had been brought together for the express purpose of putting together a special first contact package and devising possible strategies for facing their frightening foe.

And despite the severity of the situation and the briskness with which the peoples there went about their business, there was still a measure of calm in the room, but that calm was shattered in an instant as nearly every omni-tool in the room began signaling incoming communications, only the Councilors hearing the message truly clearly as the holo projector to the right of their stand activated to display the form of the Asari matriarch in command of the dreadnought Destiny Ascension.

"Councilors, two massive spatial anomalies have been detected seventy-five kilometers off the open end of the Citadel arms," she reported, making the dubious attempt to sound in control.

Sparatus was the first to react, calling out a question and an order in the same breath. "How large are they? And someone get the sensor reading up here on the display!"

"Unknown how truly large they are Councilor, but both anomalies are significantly larger than the one witnessed beyond the 314 Relay," she said, her voice cracking in panic as suddenly the anomalies solidified so to speak and ships began to pour forth in the sensor display before the council which was now crowded with soldiers and ambassadors trying to see what was happening.

What was happening was the two slip space portals had suddenly divulged dozens of dreadnought sized vessels before one portal spat forth a pair of 25 km long monstrosities while the other let out a trio of 15 km ships, the two sets wildly different ships making a clear species distinction.

The portals weren't done though, after briefly shrinking, each one suddenly swelled and swelled before a ship began to exit each one.

One ship pearly white and organic looking, the other gun-metal gray and industrial in appearance.

Both of them though were over sixty kilometers long.

Both of them were larger than the Citadel itself in every sense of the word.

As the various people struggled to recover from the site, a booming voice suddenly issued forth from every hidden speaker in the room to fill the building with an angry voice as someone spoke.

"To the Citadel Council, we have come to either secure peace or take revenge for the unprovoked attack upon our people. How this confrontation shall proceed will be up to you, but be warned, we will not wait forever."

OoOoO

Lord hood listened as the sound of the Arbiter's declaration faded from the communication waves and waited. They had broadcast in the Turian's own language so he knew they understood them, really it was just a matter of waiting until they responded in some fashion, hopefully a peaceful one.

Fortunately, he didn't have to wait long.

An image appeared on the forward view screen showing what appeared to be a meeting hall where three beings stood at relative attention, doing their best to look impressive. He watched as the very human, blue alien in the center began to speak before listening as the translation of the Aline's voice came to life.

"We are here. I am Tevos, the Asari Councilor and my companions are the Turian and Salarian Councilors, Sparatus and Gelor respectively," she said, gesturing to each in turn before continuing as she said, "we have told you who we are, please inform us of your identity for the sake of easier communication."

There was a brief pause in the communication before Hood saw holographic avatars of himself and the Arbiter appear in the view of the council chambers as someone worked a little magic on their computer.

"I am the Arbiter, the leader of the Sangheili race and my fellow is Lord Admiral of the Fleets Sir Terrance Hood," the arbiter's projection said, towering over the council as he growled.

"We will soon board your space station in order to continue these negotiations. If you do not wish for our presence you my ride by shuttle to one of our ships where we may speak in private. The choice is yours," the Arbiter said cooly.

There was hesitation in the three aliens in the picture that told Hood they clearly weren't used to having the terms of a situation dictated to them. To the credit of the Salarian, it was only a moment before he replied saying, "Very well, we will wait for you in the council chambers to continue."

Looks of horror met him from his fellow Councilors before the communication cut out and the Arbiter reappeared on the screen.

"Lord Admiral, I trust you are ready to travel to this council and conduct our business with them?"

"I am. My pelican has been prepared for drop and I will be departing momentarily. See you down there Arbiter," Hood replied with a grim nod before cutting the channel and heading towards the launch bays where a pelican waited to take him to the meeting.

Already aboard were six fully armed Spartans in Mark-XII Mjolnir armor.

With a sigh, he took a seat in the dropship and strapped in for the ride down.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Oh wow. Over 45,000 hits, 273 followers, 204 reviews, and 177 favorites. I can honestly say I never expected this story to get so popular which is a tremendous encouragement for me to keep up my work, so thank you so much.**


	13. Status Update

**Not a chapter update today, but rather another tech dump I'm sort of sorry to say. Rest assured the next chapter is in the works though. I'm putting this up now though as some people have mistaken the two ships taken to the Citadel as Forerunner and I want to correct that now.**

**My classes have started again so I'm gonna be real slow with updates I'm sorry to say, but know the story is not abandoned.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

Class: Battle Carrier  
Designation: Monument  
Length: 62,001 meters  
Height: 19,759 meters  
Width: 14,605 meters

Weapons:  
8 Mark IX 100,000 ton MACs, curvable trajectory  
768 Energy Projectors  
176 ODP 2000 ton MACs in Shade turret gravity suspension  
9,800 Plasma Torpedo Turrets  
135,000 Pulse Laser Turrets  
79,850 70mm Point Defense Autocannons  
425 Particle Lance Acceleration Turrets  
18,766 Onager Mass Driver Point Defense Turrets  
27,980 Longbow Missile Pods (50 Missiles per pod)

Complement:  
18 Marathon Mk-II or Halcyon Mk-II class Cruisers  
86 Constantinople class Heavy Destroyers  
800,000 Broadsword class Fighter/Bombers  
240,000 Saber class Interceptors  
120,000 Pelican class Dropships  
11 Eighth Generation AI's

The final say in UNSC authority, the Monument class was built using Forerunner alloys at the dysonsphere of onyx and is so large that it contains an on-board facility for producing its ridiculously sized MAC rounds out of asteroids that meet the minimum size requirements. A Monument's most fearsome defense though could be could be considered the Orbital Defense Platform sized MACs housed in oversized shade turret type gravity cushions across the hull to provide them with full manueverability and accuracy during intense actions.

OoOoO

Class: SBN class Super Battleship  
Length: 67,895 meters  
Height: 11,007 meters  
Width: 25,391 meters

Weapons:  
1,750 Energy Projectors  
18,900 Plasma Torpedoes  
233,700 Pulse Laser Turrets  
250 PLAR Turrets  
17,590 Onager Mass Accelerator Point Defense Turrets

Propulsion: 7 Fusion powered engines, three at stern, two to each side under the 'wings'.

Appearance: The SBN bears a striking resemblance to the CSO super carrier and the CAS assault carriers barring that the wings behind the leading body are much wider and extend further back as they narrow. In addition, the traditional hook shaped nose of the shape has been replaced with a solid bulb to contain an additional reactor and extra weaponry at the cost of much of the ships hangar space as the primary hangar is no longer present.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**These are the ships under the personal Command of Hood and the Arbiter respectively that have arrived at the Citadel with their accompanying fleets.**


	14. Chapter 10: Into a Den of Vipers

**New Chapter!**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"We're a minute out, everyone prepare for landing," the pilot called over the pelican's intercom.

In an instant, the Spartans double timed their last preparations, securing their weapons to holsters along with grenades and all manner of explosives before the two sitting in the middle of the group of six vanished.

The extra measure that was being taken besides Lord Hood's own personal over shield, were those two were Spartan members of Black Team. Though they were out of the customary black armor for once, they were the elite stealth warriors of the Spartan II program. With permanent active camoflague, extended supplies, and all manners of infiltration tools, they were well prepared to serve from the shadows.

And that was why they were there, in case this council pulled anything stupid.

As they finally touched down inside a massive hangar meant for ships much, much larger that a pelican, Lord Hood made his way off the drop ship, lead and followed by a pair of visible Spartans while a member of Black Team walked along either side.

The whir of antigravity generators caught his attention so in curiosity Hood watched to see what soldiers had accompanied the Arbiter, and he was certainly not disappointed.

First from the phantom were to white armored honor guards, the 'Light of Sangeheilios' Hood recalled, followed by a hulking pair of hunters, the arbiter, and then a pair of shimmers that dropped to the ground behind the Arbiter, following in the wake of the hunters as he took position ahead of them but behind the honor guards.

Satisfied with both their escorts, Lord hood followed the leading to Spartans to an already open hallway that eventually lead into a shockingly empty concourse for the docking level they were on. "It seems they're trying to prevent as much contact as possible with us, Arbiter," Hood whispered through a private comm line.

"So it would, however I would not doubt there are those who are watching even now," the Sangehieli replied.

"Most likely, the communication line to Admiral Chitose and the Supreme Commander is working?" Hood asked of no one in particular before watching a tiny 'yes' scrawl across his vision as one of the AIs in the fleet outside the Citadel listened to their communications.

As they walked in silence, Hood, the Arbiter and their guards marched till they reached a massive elevator at the end of the concourse which they boarded with a shrug from each of them beforehand. As soon as they were all aboard, the doors closed and the elevator began a rapid ascension through the structure of the station eventually slowing and coming to a halt at which point the doors opened to reveal an opulent entrance to what Hood presumed was their diplomatic chambers.

A wide plaza like area with a fountains and a large central staircase dominated the room, massive planters filled with pink flowered trees dominating a series of tiers along the staircase as Hood's inner soldier instantly recognized defensive positions for what they were as he and the Arbiter began advancing up the staircase to till they reached the top.

At the top, a warm, feminine voice rang out as it ran through the translator saying, "Welcome to the Citadel."

**OoOoOoOoO**

**Apologies for the long absence, I've had a heavy course load this semester and things have only been lightening up enough to get any writing done towards the end. I'll be trying to get some more done soon, but no promises.**

**And if you people don't stop bitching about the length of an update I simply put out to let you know I'm not dead I'm gonna upload a 25,000 word smut I wrote to piss with my English teacher as an interlude for you so so shove it.**


	15. Chapter 11: Out on the Ice

**Alright time for a real chapter now, my apologies for the brevity of the last one but that felt like as good a place as any to break off and pause for this one. Now a couple notes.**

**First I was made aware that the pink trees in the council chambers are cherry trees from earth, however I didn't know that when I wrote it so I'm going to just leave them in there and we'll be assuming they're some other variety of tree with pink flowers. End of discussion.**

**Also, 100,000 views, woot!**

**Now on to the chapter.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

Tevos was quite frankly shocked as the aliens stepped up onto the dais in front of the where she and her associates stood. In truth they had been watching them through the Citadel's security cameras, but to suddenly see another race that so resembled an Asari in the flesh was disconcerting to be sure. The being wore a white military type uniform nearly overflowing with medals and ribbons on its left breast that likely signified a great deal of experience on its part in past hostilities.

Arrayed in front and behind it were a pair of massively armored figures that moved with a far too fluid grace for their size and with steps too quiet for the bulk of their armor. Even worse was that their faces were hidden behind reflective golden visors ensconced in their polished olive armor that left her feeling more than intimidated by them, and that was before she even look at the second group.

The others were first lead by a pair of hulking saurian like creatures with four mandibles coated on the interior with razor sharp teeth hinging open on the sides if their heads beneath their elaborate white and orange helmets that only served to further enhance the grandeur of their appearance. Behind them though was something even more intimidating, a pair of hulking creatures, both of them well over three and encroaching on four meters tall. They wore iridescent blue armor that was thicker than the battle plate on a tank on on their left arms were massive shields that looked even thicker with clearly sharpened edges. Their right arm seemed to be a blend between a massive claw and an enormous heavy weapon of some kind with ominous looking green tubes sitting on the outside humming along as it moved. Most interestingly, the visible parts of the creatures body were made up of what looked like glowing orange worms wriggling over and around each other, leaving Tevos at a loss as for what the creatures truly were.

All of those four though, paled in comparison to the one standing in the middle of their formation. Another of the saurians stood tall, giving off a proud air about it as it looked from council member to council member to council member. Brilliant gold eyes that filled her with unaccustomed fear sat on either side of a head atop a body that was covered in burns beneath the reflective silver-gold armor it wore. In places on the chest, Tevos could spot a mark burned into its flesh as she looked, forcing her to wonder what the creature before her had endured.

Remembering their position and the astounding fleet outside the citadel, Tevos took her role as the leader of the council and spoke up as she said, "Welcome to the Citadel."

OoOoO

Admiral Hood paused as he took a moment to process the greeting he, the Arbiter, and their escorts had received from the Asari councilor standing in the middle of the three on the opposite side of the glass floored speaker section before looking to the Arbiter and letting out a derisive snort.

He was certainly disconcerted to be meeting with an alien that looked so much like a female human, but he'd prepared himself before hand thanks to the information plundered from the codex and the turian ship for having to face them so his and the Arbiter's shock was nowhere near as palpable as the aliens' was. As he watched looks pass between the council members after his snort he finally spoke up, calmly and slowly as he said, "We're not here for some tour Councilors. We're here to secure repayment for the Turians unprovoked attack." His message didn't translate immediately, rather, as soon as he finished speaking the translator kicked in broadcast his reply in roughly the same tone back to the Councilors in the Turian tongue.

As soon as the message finished Hood caught sight of hesitation in the sight of the aliens' eyes as they listened before the Asari spoke again saying, "It was merely a greeting, but if you are seeking repayment, what are your terms?"

As soon as the translator had spit out the reply into Hood's ear, he spoke, knowing hesitation would be a sign of weakness as he declared, "The complete and unconditional surrender of the Turian Hierarchy, the elevation of all client races to Council members, and the curing of the genophage."

The translator had barely pronounced the first term when the turian councilor had begun ranting and raving, shouting at a pace and with apparent anger and...slurring that Hood's translator was struggling to keep up. In general though, he got the message that the turian would most definitely not surrender if at all possible, something that put plans further on hold until he was dealt with. Calmly, Hood let his voice assume all the warmth of hard vacuum as he spoke, locking as with the turian councilor to say, "Consider your position Councilor. According to what we understand, you have lost two-thirds of your entire navy. I don't believe you are in any position to dictate anything to us much less refuse, and if you continue to, I will remind you of the responsibilities upon your shoulders."

The room was silent as the translator churned out the reply before the Turian Councilor growled, literally growled back, "And what would you know about my responsibilities?" Hood was quiet for a moment as he considered how to word his reply. This far too much politicking for his tastes, advancing the meeting was looking to be a necessity. Calmly as he replied, he made note of a message saying 'connection established' in his vision as he said, "I know you are responsible for the lives of your people, and if you do not do the wise thing now you will be responsible for their genocide and perhaps that of all the Council species if they choose to interfere in a war between us."

There was a moment of tense silence that followed Hood's pronouncement before the Turian Councilor spoke up as he asked, his voice trembling with barely contained rage even through the translator, "You. Would threaten us. With genocide? You think you-"

"Why not? You've shown enough predisposition for doing it yourself. The Rachni. The Krogan. You've inflicted genocide yourselves often enough, why should you be surprised to be on the receiving end of it when someone strong enough decides it's a viable option," the Arbiter suddenly barked out, interrupting the Councilor's tirade before it could really get going.

"Those were desperate situations, our enemies refused reason, and would never surre-" The Asari Councilor began before Hood sudden shouted her down having finally lost patience as he raised his voice to shout, "And exactly as you are threatening to do now! If you refuse our terms, then we will have no choice but to take action." With a sudden change of mood, Admiral Hood turned to face the holoprojector as he called out, "Admiral Chitose, Supreme Commander Vandum, dispatch your fleets. Do not engage until ordered to or unless fired upon."

An immediate look of puzzlement appeared the Councilors' faces, the readable ones at least, before a pair of holograms suddenly leapt to life above the projector displaying Admiral Chitose and Supreme Commander Vandum saluting as they respectively replied, "Yes sir" "As you will" before suddenly disappearing. As the Council looked back to Lord Hood, the Asari spoke up asking, "What are they going to do?"

**OoOoOoOoO**

**So there's the new, full chapter. Hope you all enjoyed it, I'll see about getting some more out soon, but no promises. And it seems the threat of a large interlude made of smut was a good way to stop the whiners so I think I'll hold to that threat and next time I get a bunch of those complaints, I'll post such an interlude. Might not put up the 25k one for the sake of false advertising the story's length, but I have a few shorter ones I might dump instead to annoy the restless.**


	16. Chapter 12: In the Presence of Dragons

**So first off, let's address some complaints, funniest one is ToLazyToLogIn's.**

**Inverness: blah blah blah blah the fact you're writing in them threatening genocide shows you don't know anything blah blah blah blah**

**Me: So first off Inverness, your complaint shows you didn't even bother to pay attention to any of the previous chapters. I made it very, very clear that Hood and the Arbiter were extremely reluctant to wage any kind of war, least of all a genocidal one. The fact is coming in strong allows you to negotiate down rather than forcing you to work your way up. Plus if anyone has ever paid ANY FUCKING ATTENTION in mass effect, the council tends only to pay attention when some has a gun directly to their head.**

**Wolf girl811: Why do we do this?**

**Me: I think we writers do this for two reasons. One to express our (at least my) discontent with bickering politicians. And two, to very clearly demonstrate the difference between how the military and goverment function in terms of directness.**

**Inverness (again): You're not gonna get far if you take a fucking attitude with your readers.**

**Me: Well I'm not gonna get far if I try to please every asshole I encounter either. As I've clearly stated, I'll write this whether or not people read it, so you can just shove off with the rest if you don't care.**

**Dragonheart967: There goes the creative writing? You think things can't develop at all from here? Well I'm terribly sorry to have disappointed you, go join Inverness.**

**KineticKaiser: I've been told my short ones are decent at least, I've never forced anyone to read the longer ones.**

**Inverness (A third damn time): I dun like punishing children for their parents crimes.**

**Me: Actually neither do I. However in this one I make an exception based on the fact that the salarians actively upgrade the genophage to keep it effective over its entire 1746 year period of effect (regardless of whether or not you cure it). Also there's the fact that every race on the council for the majority of it seems to have supported genophage so if they won't make the change then it has to be given to them.**

**Guest -designated ass for not logging in: WHY WON'T YOU BUFF THE COUNCIL?!**

**Me: Cause it would never happen and it ain't canon dipshit.**

**DarkOne: They seem to be turning into the imperium.**

**Me: Not really, they're still a civilian controlled group at the base it's just this is a military situation. Also everyone seems be ignoring that I've been TRYING to paint them as reluctant to even wage war. The Council scene is mostly bluff, though it has potential truth.**

**ToLazyToLogIn: Where do you get your dickish attitude?**

**Me: I import it from the finest college level douchebags as I'm personally not much of a dick. - Actually I get it from pretentious pricks who come in and assume they can order me around and dictate the path of my story.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"Where are they going?"

That question hung in the air for several moments before Hood deigned to answer it as he looked towards the window behind the council as he said, "Those two are commanding a series of fleets that are currently on their way to go and blockade Palaven and a dozen other Turian worlds. As I instructed them, they will not immediately engage without orders or unless your own ships begin to attack them. Otherwise they will simply blockade your planets and the Mass Relays."

"Palaven..." the Turian Councilor murmured, "You're going to my species' home world?"

"Yes, one of our fleets will be in orbit within a few minutes of each of the designated planets," the Arbiter supplied.

The air grew steadily more tense for several moments before the Salarian Councilor spoke up, unsteadily asking "You would truly inflict genocide upon one of our species?"

"If you would not surrender, if you would not agree to a peaceful solution, then possibly yes. It would be with heavy hearts, but yes," the Arbiter replied sadly, crossing a fist across his chest.

The room settled into a terrible silence for several minutes as neither side dared to break the silence before an urgent beeping from the Turian Councilor's omni tool interrupted the silence as he raised the tool into view as a stream of data sprang into existence, showing a startling amount of information that scrawled by at a frightening pace on the tool's screen before it disappeared at which point Hood decided to speak up asking, "Councilor, care to share what that was?"

There was clear hesitation and even anger on the Turian's face as he snapped up to look at Lord Hood before he sighed and dragged a hand down over his face before beginning to speak as he said, "It would seem your statement was true. Several fleets have just arrived around a number of Turian Primary worlds. None of them have taken any action beyond forming up around the Mass Relays."

OoOoO

Gelor had been mostly silent for the entirety of the discussion so far, but with the pause provided by the arrival of the aliens' fleets around Turian planets, he finally decided it was time to speak.

"Surely," he began, "You must understand there are reasons for the genophage to be in place as well as client races. If you have accessed and read our codex then surely you understand this." There was a pause as the Asari like alien seemed to pause for several moments as if lost in thought before it began to speak up yet again in its native tongue. When it finished, the translator it wore kicked in and suddenly began broadcasting what had been said in the Asari language.

"You made short sighted decisions and when it bit you in the ass you decided the only reasonable response was to kill off nearly the entire species rather than to make peace with them. You actively work to keep them in such a position by updating the disease you infected them with rather then righting the wrongs that were committed by your ancestors," the translator called out, heavy with emotion as it continued to say, "Our own species was very nearly annihilated to a being, and as such we can not accept seeing any race forced into such a position. Much less for nearly two millennia."

There was a pregnant pause as Gelor's fellow Councilors digested this information before he spoke up for a second time to say, "But surely you can understand why such a tight reign must be kept on the Krogan. War is in their very blood, they se-"

Any attempt at continuing was cut off as the saurian spoke again as it growled out a message before the translator put out a reply. "Both of our species have been at war for nearly the entirety of our history and yet we reached a state of peace ourselves until you came along."

That little reply made things only more uncomfortable for several seconds till Tevos finally spoke up deciding to see about addressing perhaps the least contentious issue as she asked, "If we cannot discuss the other two options yet, may we at least discuss the issue of the client races? Please tell us what your problems are with our political system so we can begin to move forward with these negotiations."

And there it was, ever the diplomat, the Asari were playing peacemakers yet again Gelor observed.

OoOoO

"You force other races into a subservient position to your own. You deny them the ability to make decisions for themselves and enforce whatever rules you decide to come up with. You may have been level and even in the past, and they lived in a gilded cage, but denying them the opportunity to govern themselves as you do yourselves is truly wrong," the Arbiter spoke out sharply after the Asari Councilor attempted to get things rolling. As his translator spat out his reply, a watched the Turian tremble with fury while the Salarian took on a more pensive look before the Turian Councilor spoke, shouted really, as he called, "The client races are not members of the council because they have yet to prove themselves and provide something tremendous and worthwhile to Citadel Space like the Turian defense of the Asari."

"And they never will either if you continue to block and prevent them from ever reaching a state where they can. Allowing them to voice their opinions on this Council of yours would no doubt allow them to make worthwhile contributions would it not?" Lord Hood shot back as he watched the scene unfold.

"A valid possibility. Denying the options prevents future chances," the Salarian Councilor spoke up after a moment of silence, only to suddenly be rounded on by the Turian as he shouted, "Gelor, don't tell me you're seriously considering their railroading!"

"Only viewing from different angles Sparatus. As I said denying options prevents future chances. If we take into account their fleet, we can see they could simply kill us and implement a new government but instead they have sued for peace. Train pride is proving dangerous Councilor," the Salarian Councilor, Gelor now that he'd been named, replied.

"Dangerous?!" Sparatus roared back, "The pride of my people is all that has stood between us and death many times Gelor!"

"True, Sparatus," the Asari Councilor piped in with a sigh, "The role it has played in saving this council can not be debated, but if you look carefully, that pride may be all that's standing between your species and survival now Sparatus."

"I. I. I have had enough of this!" I'm am leaving this farce of a negotiation!" Sparatus roared angrily as he turned and began to stalk off to the side before and icy voice from a translator brought him to a halt.

"Councilor Sparatus, if you walk out of these negotiations, we WILL consider it an act of war."

In an instant Sparatus, Gelor and the Asari Councilor had turned to look at Lord Hood, fear present in all their eyes as the enormity of the threat struck home as part of the fleet outside drifted past in the nebula behind the window.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**And there's the next chapter, all put together and everything whining, suggestions, and praise (I suppose) will go in the comment section as per usual.**

**Oh and there was much wailing and gnashing of teeth among the ME fanboys...**


	17. Chapter 13: Terms and Conditions

_**BIG NOTICE, I WILL NO LONGER BE ACCEPTING ANONYMOUS REVIEWS, SO SIGN THE FUCK IN OR I'LL DELETE YOUR REVIEWS, I'M GETTING TIRED OF ANONYMOUS PEOPLE PISSING AT ME AND NOT LETTING ME PISS BACK.**_

**Little message: If I really wanted to buff the UNSC, I would have had them reclaim their glory from when they fought both the flood and the forerunners to a standstill. At that time they were so powerful that a single ship would have been enough for everything I'm doing here.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

"You'll what?"

"I'm not going to repeat myself Councilor Sparatus," Hood replied coldly.

For an instant every eye in the room, even those of the guards was split between Sparatus and Hood before the Asari Councilor suddenly spoke up as she interjected, "Please! Please! Let us all calm down! I understand that there are issues between us both, but please let us talk this out." Her desparation clear through the translation and even before hand.

Sparatus hesitated for several moments, clenching and unclenching his hands into fists before he sighed as he spat out a reply saying, "Fine."

An audible sigh of relief left both Gelor and the Asari Councilor before the Asari spoke up asking, "Thank you Sparatus. May we please retire to somewhere more comfortable to continue these negotiations? I can't help but notice we didn't even introduce ourselves to each other though you seemed to have picked up on our names quite quickly."

"I would be amenable to this," Gelor replied followed by a curt nod from Sparatus and a brief reply of agreement from both Lord Hood and the Arbiter.

"Very well, then we will move to a nearby conference room to continue and introduce ourselves," the Asari replied with audible relief.

OoOoO

About five or six minutes later the entirety of the group had retired to a large conference room set in a hallway off to the side and down one tier from the speaker's area where they had been speaking. They had been joined by three Asari guards, three Turian guards, and a pair of Salarian guards. Now the sixteen guards stood around the perimeter of the room, alternating between UNSC and Council while a circular table sat in the middle with the five...diplomats around it.

"Now as you have already learned, these are my associates and fellow Councilors, Executor Sparatus of the Turians and Dalatrass Gelor of the Salarians," the Asari Councilor began as she settled into her seat, gesturing to each in turn who nodded in acknowledgement. "I myself," she said, "am Matriarch Tevos of the Asari."

Hood and the Arbiter nodded in reply to the formal introductions before introducing themselves as the Arbiter spoke first as he said, "I am the Arbiter, leader, commander, and representative of the Sangeheili people."

"And I am Lord Admiral Knight Terrance Hood, leader of the United Nations Space Command and the commander of all human forces," Hood replied, giving his introduction.

"Very well then," Tevos began, settling her features into a practiced, if slightly nervous smile, as she continued, "Lord Hood, you stated what were quite reasonable reasons for the elevation of client races to the status of full Citadel Council species. Besides the obvious disruption to the standard balance of power this would cause, there is issue that many of our species are strongly traditional. Such a change could cause incredible disruption within our society unsee-"

"They'll get over it. Make no mistake, as a species, both of us deeply understand tradition. The uniform I wear now is a design nearly five hundred years old, the armor worn by the Arbiter's Sangeheili guards is a design millennia old. So make no mistake in understanding that we know tradition's importance. However, tradition must take second place to adaptation Councilors," Hood replied calmly, even patiently one might say, "Centuries ago, I am ashamed to say, people were separated and treated differently based upon the color of their skin and the origin of their birth. Whole sections of society came to be structured around the oppression of one color of people by another. Then the government made a change. The segregation was forcefully undone, and yes there was violence, and yes bigotry persisted for some time, but the people got over it Councilor. They adapted and we grew stronger for it. The same could easily be said for your Council. We never said things had to be done immediately or that they had to be done all at once, we merely said they needed to be done if we would have peace with you."

To Tevos, the sudden change in demeanor for Lord Hood was dramatic and easy to observe. Almost it seemed that he was more tired of dealing with them which worried her, but his calmness assured her slightly.

"If you do not require these things done instantly, then when would you require them done?" Councilor Sparatus asked as calmly as he could.

"The surrender of the Turian Heirarchy would need to take place within the next week or we will resume attacking though we will restrict ourselves to military and industrial targets only. The elevation of all races to become council members and the curing of the genophage must take place within the next three years," the Arbiter supplied calmly, letting his translator supply once he had finished speaking.

Tevos let out an audible sigh of relief. They had time, for everything it seemed, except the Tirian surrender. Otherwise Sparatus had one week to coerce his people into standing down or else they'd be slaughtered, or he'd be deposed for not surrendering. Those were the three immediate options she saw for him to chose from in the immediate future.

"I...believe...we could accomplish the elevation of the client races to full Council members within in the allotted time Arbiter, Lord Hood, however," Tevos remarked with a sigh, "Curing the genophage may take longer as it was primarily a Salarian creation and I do not know how long the creation of a cure would take, or if one is already prepared now. The surrender of the Turians may take longer as well depending upon Executor Sparatus's ability to reason with his people. As you've seen, the Turians are a strong willed people and do not fall easily."

"Yes, we did notice that," the Arbiter supplied. He'd watched one of the prisoner interviews and noted the fire in the Alien's speech and posturing, mentally connecting just how similar they were to the Sangeheili in that respect as well.

"Very well then," Hood replied, bringing all attention back to himself, "You will have one month to secure the surrender of the Turian Hierarchy. The original time frame for the elevation of client races will remain the same, and the time frame for the cure for the genophage shall be decided after preliminary studies begin and we know the progress of any current cure, and we will know if you lie about any of these. Understood?"

Nods from all the present parties signaled the end of the conversation at which point Admiral Hood stood up from his chair, the Arbiter joining him, and left the room, their guard detail following them out and back to the shuttle bay.

Only in total they were short four members, but the Council didn't need to know that.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**And you know what's great? A lot of you seem to have the idea that UNSC is flipping tables, but the thing is, I never ever set a time table for when the changes had to be done by till now. So really the UNSC is sorta just shuffling tables around. Those of you who thought the UNSC would just blast them for not acquiescing immediately and whined are about as short sighted as the Council.**


	18. Chapter 14: A Pledge To All People

**AGAIN, ANONYMOUS, NON-LOGGED IN REVIEWS WILL BE DELETED.**

**Now, next message: I'll start being nice when you stop being stupid. Since I don't see that happening any time soon, put up or shut up. Thanks to everyone else who left creative and supportive reviews though, they were greatly appreciated.**

**And the last one: You know I really thought I was getting through to people with the declining number of stupid reviews but rdde you have proved me wrong with your review!**

**There is some truth to your analogy of comparing what's happened in Iraq to what I'm doing except a you didn't think through my stuff very well or the UNSC's very well. The Spartans are probably carrying AI's which can simply remove any trace of them from Citadel Computer systems. They have cloaking systems millennia ahead of the Council's, and if they were compromised, they would detonate the reactors in their armor, removing any sign of their presence other than trace molecules. There's never been much talk about what Sangeheili infiltrators are equipped with but after pairing with the UNSC I could seeing them being similarly equipped. Also for exfiltration, a prowler could easily get them out without ever being seen, heard, or detected in any fashion while providing full tactical and strategic support and relaying everything back to HIGHCOM.**

**Also rdde, it's possible to secure things on isolated networks or on hard copies like paper necessitating direct retrieval by a person, and there's a great deal one can learn from direct observation that they can't learn in a report, so first hand experience is invaluable.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

As the representitives of human and Sangeheili races left the station, Tevos took the opportunity to bury her face in her hands and prop her elbows on the table as she finally let her nervousness show, as she spoke up to say, "Everyone else please leave, the Councilors and I need to speak privately."

There was a rustle and a series of looks between the guess before they nodded and filed out of the room without a noise. Once the door was closed and Tevos was certain of their privacy, she finally began to speak as she said, "We really don't have a choice do we?"

"Of course we have a choice Tevos," Sparatus shot, "We can always fight and resist them. There's no certainty they could defeat the entirety of our combined navy!"

"Sparatus, tell me, have you been hit on the head?"

Instantly every remaining pair of eyes in the room was looking to Gelor who had asked what was quite frankly an insulting question, especially given the implications of it.

"Gelor...explain quickly please," Tevos supplied evenly as she attempted to halt the suddenly rising tensions.

"I was merely asking if Councilor Sparatus had incurred any recent brain damage that might be accounting for his suddenly scuicidal behavior. Two-thirds of his species's navy has been completely annihilated and the Asari and Salarian navies combined would barely recoup such a loss in a major conflict if pulled from their stations. As such I can hardly see there being any worthwhile point to resistance other then to leave a line in history that says not to oppose them lest you suffer the same fate," Gelor replied calmly, even surprisingly slowly for a Salarian.

"The Hierarchy will not stand for surrendering like they demand, Gelor! We fought our way back from when the Krogan were ready to bombard our home world to get where we are!" Sparatus ground out.

"The Krogan did not possesses nearly the level of technology sophistication and firepower these aliens do, Sparatus!" Tevos finally shouted as she stood and and rounded on the Turian.

For a moment both of her fellow Councilors were shocked into silence by Tevos's outburst before the Asari suddenly set her hands on the table hung her head as she declared, "Sparatus, if you do not surrender, all Asari financial interests will be pulled out of the Turian economy and we will also with hold all military aid. We just can't risk a fight them, I'm sorry."

OoOoO

"Matriarch Tevos has withdrawn the Asari's military support?" The hologram asked in confirmation.

"Yes Primarch Fedorian, if we do not surrender the Asari refuse to provide us with any military support if we renter into conflict with these new races and they also threaten to pull all economic interested out as well," Sparatus confirmed grimly.

"Executor, what is your opinion of what we should do?" The Primarch asked.

There was a brief pause before Sparatus spoke as he said, "Logic and tactics would dictate we surrender sir. Even if we pull all of our reserves and even our mothballed ships I don't think we stand a chance, even against the smallest fleet they have deployed above our planets."

"What about allies? Gelor didn't say anything about the Salarians abandoning us and there are other groups we could work with to make up the necessary hulls and bodies in a fight," Fedorian asked.

"The batarians and mercenaries? Maybe but I doubt they'd amount to much in a real fight, and we'd probably lose so many that we wouldn't be able to even have a chance of winning a second time Primarch," Sparatus replied tiredly as he rubbed his eyes tiredly before continuing, "We may be able to fight them on the ground but I honestly can't say if we could or not for sure. If their soldiers have shields like their ships, their honestly isn't anything we can do."

As the Council broke up to continue working their own ideas, a very different scene was playing out in the Orion arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.

OoOoO

Television screens across Human, Sangeheili, Unggoy, Lekgolo, Kig-Yar, and a small myriad of other species sovereign space paused mid broadcast as a sudden alert indicating an emergency message flashed across the screen before changing to a scene showing a tall, pale man with a well weathered complexion and a thin scar running from mid-way across his forehead to his left temple and into his silver-gray hair that was neatly trimmed. His mouth was set into a grim line before he started to speak and cold, almost black, brown eyes looked out from where they sat under his brow. The subtitles of the screen announced who it was, but nearly every sentient being knew who it was speaking from behind the podium on the broadcast.

President of the UEG, Chairman of the United Beings Council, and the one who led the assembledge of species in all political matters: Andrew R. Strauss.

As people across various planets began to turn up the volume on their sets, or turn turn it down as they watched the subtitles begin to scroll across the screen.

"My fellow people. Less then a day ago while exploring a piece of technology left behind by a long forgotten race, our fellow citizens were set upon by a hostile group of beings who proceeded to attack and destroy their ship; killing all fifty-three aboard after refusing all attempts at communication," Strauss began his voice hard, but schooled with clear emotion.

"The ships that had been in the immediate area responded and repulsed the alien attackers, destroying all but one of their ships before they fled. In response to this, the entirety of the Seventh Fleet was mobilized and arrived in time to completely destroy a second offensive by these aliens consisting of over a hundred ships. During this battle, one of the alien ships was captured and we learned that this race we are engaged with are named the Turian Hierarchy."

There was a brief pause as suddenly dozens of flashes from cameras went off before the President raised and hand for silence as he began to continue speaking. "We have utterly destroyed over two-thirds of the Turian Heirarchy's navy. However, we have learned that they are part of a greater collective of races, three of which, including the Turians, dominate a large number of others. We have found the capital of this collective of species and even now we are in diplomatic talks with them, demanding nothing less then the unconditional surrender of the Turian Hierarchy and the righting of the near genocide they have wrought on several species."

As President Strauss paused for a moment there were audible gasps of surprise at the idea that the collective they had encountered had brought about genocide or attempted to. Many members of the press still had memories of the Great War so the idea was something truly horrifying to them.

"I wish to reassure the people of these United Systems that the full measure of our power shall be brought to bear should it be required to make right what has been left wrong and to bring justice to those left abandoned," the President finished before he turned and left the podium.

OoOoO

Two hours after the diplomatic session between Hood, the Arbiter, and the Council had broken up, a quartet of camouflaged being skulked through the keeper tunnels of the Citadel as they made their way towards the Archives located deep within the station. As they went, there were occasional chuckles of amusement over their heavily encrypted comm lines as they listened to the news broadcasts about the massive fleet sitting around the station.

Half the fleet had vanished into Slip Space a half hour ago but the largest ships had all remained on station while the rest had gone off to take up position in orbit over other Turian colonies. Meanwhile the stealth cruiser Beyond Oblivion had moved in and more or less gravitomically attached itself to the side of one of the Citadel's arms and was siphoning tremendous amounts of data directly out of the station's systems. All the while she and her crew were calmly waited for the four stealthed team members to need extraction.

Which they might, but given how easy it was to slip by the security on the station it seemed unlikely.

**OoOoOoOoO**

**And another chapter all done, more character expansion will happen for the stealth team later, but not for now.**


	19. Chapter 14-5: A Delicate Alliance

**Alright people, apologies here but this isn't a full chapter. Things are going to be getting a great deal more complicated and I'll be introducing a bunch of new political groups so I've written up a bit of required reading on how the Haloverse is currently setup.**

**Yendarman, if I could understand what you were saying I wouldn't consider you annoying and/or stupid.**

**OoOoOoOoO**

/ACCESS: Political Analysises  
/ACCESS: The United Systems Assembledge: A Move of Desperation, by Dr. Demeter Kiev  
/ADDITIONAL INFORMATION MAY BE PERTINENT: ACCESS? [Y/N]  
/Y  
/INCLUDING: The Will of Hood, by Dr. Adrianna Bann  
/INCLUDING: Historic Parallels, Their Meaning, and Their Need, by Dr, Sherman Drake  
/OPENING REQUESTED FILES:

/OPENING FIRST FILE: The United Systems Assembledge, A Move of Desperation

Foreword by Dr. Catheine Halsey.

Let it never be said that humanity is not an opportunistic species. In every encounter and at every chance, humanity has sought to derive whatever opportunity it can from any situation it has found itself in. Fire likely came from a chance discovery of something caused by nature. Weapons from naturally occurring stones with faults that left them razor sharp. Supremacy from any weakness the opponent ever showed.

In the wake of the in Great War against the Covenant Hegemony that left the UEG and UNSC on the brink of collapse, humanity looked in every possible direction for whatever advantage could be gained in order to recover our fledgling interstellar empire. Even seeking treaties and peace with some of our former enemies became reasonable if it helped us recover, for some could see how they had been used, and many knew just how they had come to our aid and rescue as the Covenant laid siege to our home world.

With such flexibility new governments and idealogies form, including what is now known as the United Species Assembledge. This hodgepodge of varied species, many once detested as the near blood enemies of humanity, now aid us in our times of need as we aid them in their times as well. The unique structure bears resemblance to old Earth governments only with varied parts crushed into one mass and forced to work together towards a common set of goals: survival and stability.

/FILE CLOSED BY USER  
/OPENING NEXT FILE: The Will of Hood, by Dr. Adrianna Bann

Following the Human-Covenant War, more colequently known as the 'Great War' to both scholars and average citizens, human civilization was on the very brink of collapse if it was not already in the proccess of doing so. With nearly the entirey of the colonies burned to ashen cinders and billions upon billions of humans dead, most of the infrastructure that supported the UEG economy was destroyed.

Compared to humanity, much of the former Covenant Hegemony's economic base survived the war despite the best efforts of the UNSC. What this conglomerate of aliens lacked however was a defining leadership that could prevent further inner conflict, something humanity had been lucky enough to maintain. Through efforts by the Sangeheili known as the Arbiter as well as Rtas Vandum, Admiral of the fleet Terrance Hood and then newly elected President Andrew R. Strauss. Though largely admitted to by all parties involved at the start, the policy brought forth by these four was for UEG and UNSC assets to be used to establish stable, long-term governments for the former Covenant species through consensus, coercion, and brute force as required to establish stability and peace across as much of known space as possible using techniques and methods honed by millennia of trial and error in Earth's ancient governments. In exchange, intact former Covenant economic facilities and stockpiles would be used to help re-establish the UEG and UNSC and rebuild humanity's colonies while working to raise the level of trust and lessen the still prevalent xenophobia most humans had after the war through direct human-alien interact and by having former Covenant species be able to be observed directly helping human beings.  
Further evide-

/FILE CLOSED BY USER  
/OPENING NEXT FILE: Historic Parallels, Their Meaning, and Their Need, by Dr, Sherman Drake  
/SKIPPING AHEAD BY USER REQUEST

The eclectic collection of governments that make up the United Species Assembledge are almost always at after each other in terms of policy and trade, much like the old nations of Earth; however, unlike them, the ruling council that bears direct resemblance and was in fact based upon the old UN with several major differences from the ineffective body that used to help govern our home world and in fact became the UEG.

The base governments of each member species of the Assembledge; the Ship Mothers of the Kig-yar, the Matrons of the Unggoy, the High Council of the Sangeheili, the Collossus of the Lekgolo, and the Senate and President of the UEG, all select a single representative from their species who they believe will best respect their species interests on the galactic theater. These members form the Assembledge Council which decides matters of security, interspecies trade, interspecies disputes, and several other matters.

This Council is directly related to the old UN in design barring several differences including that laws made and passed by the Council trump all other laws until challenged in court, in which case the state must make the case for the reasoning behind the law's necessity. This ability to challenge laws is a hold over and direct parallel to the judicial system of the United States on pre-UEG Earth, only stream lined and with a great deal of effort made to cut out the usual biases that can show up.

Beyond laws made by the Council, all species are free to regulate their own laws as they wish providing they do not violate a series of base rights determined and agreed upon at the founding of the Assembledge that again draws many of its parallels from the pre-UEG United States. These laws require equal pay for all people for the same job, regardless of gender or species provided they meet the minimum expectations of their employment, the full outlawing of slavery occurred as it had still been an occasional practice among Kig-yar pirates, this was elevated to a capital offense, and several other laws based around discrimination. Of note, much like the United States of old, the Assembledge has no official language, however for simplicity's sake, Englush was universally adopted as the agreed upon trade language meaning that many member species are bilingual at the very least.  
/FILE CLOSED BY USER

**OoOoOoOoO**

**So there's a bit of back information for you about the Haloverse now that 35 years have passed in the political world. The next chapter will be out soon I hope, not sure though, finals are almost here.**


End file.
